


You're Going to Find Your Way Back Home

by TheGaySmurf



Series: Life Is the Moments We Make (The Seconds We Take) [7]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: (as historically accurate as I could possibly make it while still telling a fictional story), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Future Fic, Ghost Stories, Not your average camping trip, Prompt Fill, Road Trips, Spooky Adventure, Suspense, rated for content in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-23 17:04:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12512120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGaySmurf/pseuds/TheGaySmurf
Summary: Prompt:  "Waverly and Nicole road trip the California coast on the PCH.  But they run out of gas in the middle of the desert.  What is their night alone in the middle of nowhere like?  Romantic adventure?  Or terrifying disaster?"  -- Katherine Barrell (via Reddit AMA)





	1. My Hand on the Wheel, and Your Head on My Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jaybear1701](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaybear1701/gifts).



> @jaybear1701 tagged me to fill this prompt given by Kat during the Reddit AMA, and this is my take on a spooky little adventure for WayHaught just in time for Halloween.
> 
> Starting today, there will be a new chapter posted every day leading up to Halloween, when the finale will be posted. As a little bonus to kick things off, I'm giving you two chapters to get things started.
> 
>  
> 
> First of all, I would like to thank:  
> \- @jaybear1701 for trusting me with this prompt. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to fill it.  
> \- @belikebumblebee, who read the first two chapters when I was just starting out _months_ ago, and encouraged me to keep going with it. She's the reason it even got off the ground in the first place.  
>  \- @piratekane... I don't even begin to have the words for her. It's easy to thank her for being my beta, but how do I thank her for everything _else?_ She's talked me down off the ledge with this fic more times than I can count. And when I first mentioned "It's too bad I won't have this done in time for Halloween because that would be cool," she immediately decided IT WILL BE READY IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN. This last week and a half as been a whirlwind that mostly passed by in a fever, but... here we are. She was right. She somehow managed to trick me into getting ready in time for Halloween. So I guess that is your treat.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic and chapter titles are all taken from song lyrics.  
> Fic Title: "Yesterday's Song" - Default
> 
>  
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Red Camaro" - Keith Urban

“You’re a downright road hazard, Waverly Earp.”

Waverly slides the wire-rimmed sunglasses down her nose and peers over the tops of the round, comically large, black lenses.  She narrows her eyes, but a faint smirk tugs at the corners of her mouth.

“I mean it.  You should come with a warning label.  Caution signs.  Flashing hazard lights.”  Nicole shakes her head, her dimple appearing slowly.  “Something tells me my insurance doesn’t cover roadside disasters caused by my girlfriend distracting me while I’m driving.”

The brilliant smile she gets in return is a thousand times more blinding than the blazing California sun beating down on them, tingeing her alabaster skin that’s still exposed a rosy shade of pink. 

They had both applied sunscreen liberally when leaving their hotel this morning, after Waverly’s insistence that they zip the top off of her Jeep and enjoy the hot summer day in style.  Waverly is subsequently turning an alluring shade of bronze as the day wears on.  Nicole, on the other hand…  Well, they’ve already had to stop three times for her to reapply her UV protection.

During the last break, they’d found a little seafood joint along the beach, watching the ocean waves break against the sand while Nicole savored the refuge the umbrella rising out of their picnic table had provided from the sun.  Waverly had teased that Nicole was redder than the lobster she was currently shucking, but then she’d taken pity on her girlfriend and offered to help her put the top back on.

But the truth is, Nicole was enjoying the salty sea air and the warmth of the day and the way tendrils of Waverly’s hair kept falling out of the messy bun on top of her head and whipping around her face as she turned it up toward the sun.  So instead, she had just grabbed her Purgatory Sheriff’s Department softball shirt out of her bag and pulled it on over her tank top to let the long sleeves protect her from getting burnt.

A cool breeze from out over the water had reached out to caress them while Nicole was looking for her mirrored Aviators as they were loading up again, and Waverly had snapped a picture at just the right moment, capturing Nicole’s laugh as her short, coppery locks had fanned across her face, mussed and wild and beautiful.

“I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about,” Waverly says with a roguish grin as she pushes the sunglasses back up her nose and settles into her seat again.  “And you should probably keep your eyes on the road, Officer Haught.”

It’s early afternoon and Waverly has abandoned her flip-flops in the floorboard and sprawled herself across her side of the Jeep like a cat stretched out lazily in a sunbeam.   Her seat is reclined to its limit and her bare feet are kicked up on the dashboard, showing off her toned legs that eventually disappear beneath her cutoff Daisy Dukes, leaving _very_ little to Nicole’s imagination.

And to make matters worse, Waverly just stripped off her floral-printed crop top, tossing it casually into the backseat, and is now sun-bathing in her emerald green bikini top.  The one Nicole bought her, because Waverly Earp looks _gorgeous_ in green.

Keep her eyes on the road indeed.

Nicole lets her fingertips trail up the sun-warmed skin of Waverly’s leg, watching out of the corner of her eye as Waverly squirms in her seat from the feather-light touch.  She eventually scolds Nicole and bats her hand away playfully when she starts to trace patterns on Waverly’s inner thigh.

Grinning, Nicole reaches instead to fiddle with the radio, cranking up the volume when she lands on a classic rock station blaring out the kind of music that’s perfect for a road trip.  Waverly giggles at her when she starts belting out “More Than a Feeling,” drumming dramatically on the steering wheel along with the beat of the classic 70’s anthem.

Some much needed time away from Purgatory and all of its mayhem.  No curse.  No demons.  No things that go bump in the night.  Just a few lazy days on a beach, two outdoorsman packs loaded up and ready for a hike through Point Mugu State Park and camping in the Santa Monica Mountains, and a long, leisurely drive along the Pacific Coast Highway.

And each other.

Nicole’s heart swells when Waverly joins in on the chorus and reaches over to slip her hand into one of Nicole’s, linking their fingers together.  Nicole brings their joined hands to her mouth and presses a soft kiss to the back of Waverly’s, then rests them together on her thigh as they continue to sing along with the music, their voices carried away on the wind whipping through the wide open Jeep.

Can life get any better than this?

Nicole is pretty sure she already knows the answer to that question, and there’s no way in hell – figuratively or _literally_ – that she’s going to let anything ruin the week that she has planned.

 

* * *

 

“Do you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

Nicole cocks her head to the side and regards Waverly curiously as she shifts uneasily in her seat.  She fidgets with the frayed edge of her cutoffs for a moment and then rolls her shoulder in half-shrug.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, taking a drink from her water bottle.  “Nothing.  Never mind.”

Nicole has never been one to believe in clairvoyance or premonitions or the kind of third eye bullshit you find at Madame Russo’s Psychic Parlor.  No predictions or horoscopes or getting her fortune told. 

She’s a cop.  She deals in proof.  Evidence.  Cold, hard facts.

But there’s something to be said for Waverly Earp’s – sometimes unhealthy – knack for rooting out trouble.  Half the time, she doesn’t even have to go looking for it.  It just ends up finding her instead.  Yet somehow, some way, she can usually tell when it’s coming.  Can feel the train on the tracks.  Can smell the rain.  Gets a little niggling feeling in the back of her mind that just won’t let go.

Call it heightened senses.  Call it a gut feeling.  Call it insight or instinct or intuition.  Hell, call it a _hunch,_ for all she cares.  Nicole Haught may not know exactly _what_ it is, but after two years of hunting creatures with the Earp sisters – creatures she had once thought only existed in her nightmares – after two years of exorcisms and rituals and magical sentient guns, after two years of waking up next to Waverly Earp, one thing she _does_ know is that she can _trust_ it.

Her grip on the steering wheel tightens and she turns the radio off, instantly alarmed.

“Hey,” she says, reaching out to lay a hand on Waverly’s arm, and she could swear she feels a sort of nervous energy rippling beneath her fingertips.  “What is it, Wave?  Talk to me, baby.”

“I’m not sure, Nicole,” Waverly murmurs, just barely audible over the dull, constant roar in their ears from the wind.  “Something just feels…  _off_.”

Nicole stiffens, suddenly very glad she’d talked Waverly into letting her stow her backup piece – the Sky Hawk 9mm snubnose revolver she normally wears strapped to her ankle – in the center console.  Waverly had argued that it was _inviting_ trouble to come along on their vacation.  Nicole had insisted it was simply pragmatic, given their track record.  It had taken a bit of…  _convincing_.  But she had eventually won.  Now she can’t help but think she had been right.

She checks over her shoulder.  Looks in the rearview mirror.  Surveys the picturesque scenery spread out before them.

Nothing seems out of place.  They’re not being followed.  There are no weird lights or strange noises.  No screaming civilians flagging them down or monsters standing in the middle of the road.

Gradually, Nicole begins to relax, her clenched jaw loosening as she settles back into her seat.  She realizes her knuckles have gone white around the steering wheel, and she pries them away, wincing as she flexes them gingerly to restore her circulation.

She drapes her arm across the console between them and allows her palm to rest on Waverly’s thigh, lazily rubbing soothing circles, both to calm her girlfriend and to ground herself.  Waverly is very rarely wrong, and Nicole will certainly be keeping her guard up.  But for now, they are going to continue enjoying their freedom.

It’s not every day that they get to leave their supernaturally chaotic lives behind.


	2. I've Got a Funny Little Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Funny Little Feeling" - Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers

“Ummm…  Are we lost?”

“What?  No.”

“Hmm.”

“Why would you even ask that?  I haven’t left the highway the entire time I’ve been driving since we stopped for lunch, except to fill up at that gas station an hour ago when you just _had_ to pee after draining your bottle of water.”

She expects a smartass comment in reply, but all she gets instead is Waverly straightening up in her seat with a frown.  “Are you sure we didn’t get turned around or something?”

“Waverly, the gas station was _literally_ on the side of the road.  The highway was never out of our sight.  You _watched_ me pull back onto the road, and we’ve been driving the same direction ever since.”

“Hmm,” Waverly says again, twisting around in the passenger seat to look behind them.

“Care to clue me in here, Wave?”

“Do you notice anything strange?”

“Uhhh…”  Nicole has no idea where Waverly is going with this, but it’s making her feel anxious.  Waverly’s _feeling_ has clearly not eased up as the afternoon has worn on.

“We’re driving down the PCH.”

“Yeah…?”

“In the middle of summer.”

“Yes…”

“Peak vacation and tourist time.”

“Is this leading to a point, Waverly?”

“When was the last time you saw another car?”

“You’ve gotta be joking, Wave,” Nicole huffs.  “Just look…” she pauses, her eyes narrowing, “…around.”  It’s in this moment when she realizes the entire highway is completely deserted.

There was plenty of traffic earlier.  It had even been stop and go at a few points near the entrances to some of the more well-known beaches.  And now there’s not a single other vehicle on the road with them as far as she can see in either direction. 

They’re a little further inland now, driving through a short stretch of desert before the scenic route returns to the coastal towns and crowded beaches and seaside cliffs.  They’ve temporarily traded in the ocean waves for a vast sea of sand stretching out on both sides of them.  But she doesn’t understand how _all_ of the traffic on one of California’s busiest and most popular highways could simply just…  _disappear_.

“Okay, even I gotta admit.  This place is _weird_.”

“Right?”  Waverly is a little bit smug, but mostly concerned, worry knitting her brow.

“We’re still a good ways from the mountains and the State Park.  But we’ll pull off at the next exit, okay?  Stop and look around.  See if anything looks out of place.”

“Yeah…” Waverly mumbles absentmindedly, distracted by something on the side of the road.

“Wave?  What is it?” Nicole asks, now on high alert.

“I don’t…”  She shakes her head and cranes her neck to try and see something ahead of them.  “I think…  I think I keep seeing the same mile marker over and over.”

“Waverly, that’s physically impossible.  I’ve literally been driving in a straight line for hours.”

“I know.”  Waverly squints when a small green road sign comes into view, rapidly approaching as the Jeep continues to hurtle forward.  “I _know_.  But…  Okay, here.  Mile marker…  63.  You see that, right?”

“Yeah,” Nicole nods, making sure to read the sign as it passes them by.  “Mile marker 63.”

“Okay.  Let’s see what the next one says.”  Waverly chews on her lip nervously, her fingers twisting together in her lap.

“Hey,” Nicole says, reaching over to gently squeeze Waverly’s knee.  “It’s gonna be okay.”

“I don’t know, Nic.”  Waverly drops her head back against the seat and pinches the bridge of her nose.  “Maybe it’s…”  She sighs again, heavy and long and weary.  “I mean, we live in Purgatory.  Where _everything_ is out to get us.  There’s something deadly around every corner, and there’s _always_ more to the story.  I’m so used to always trying to find the catch.  Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  What if I’m just being paranoid?  Like permanently?  What if I’m incapable of being normal?”

“You listen to me, Waverly Earp.”  Nicole squeezes Waverly’s knee again and waits until she lifts her head enough to look at her.  “Your _paranoia_ has saved mine and Wynonna’s asses more times than I can count.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past couple of years, it’s to listen to you and your instincts.  I trust them.  I trust _you_.”  She releases Waverly’s knee and moves her hand up to cup Waverly’s cheek, taking her eyes off of the road just long enough to spare a glance and make sure that she’s listening.  “You may not know what it is yet, but if you feel like something’s going on, then I believe you.”

Waverly lets out a shaky breath, shuddering beneath Nicole’s touch, and turns her face further into Nicole’s palm, brushing her lips lightly against the calloused skin.

“Besides,” Nicole says, letting her thumb stroke gently over Waverly’s cheek.  “What kind of fun is _normal,_ anyway?”

When Nicole feels Waverly huff out a soft laugh against her palm, she looks over to find the hint of a smile settling on Waverly’s face for the first time since she’d started worrying earlier in the afternoon.

“I guess normal has never been a strong suit for the Earps,” Waverly admits with a slight chuckle.

Just as Nicole is about to return the easy banter, something catches her eye up ahead.

“Here it comes,” she says, tipping her chin toward the side of the road and dropping her hand to take Waverly’s in her own.  “Moment of truth.”

They watch as the sign speeds toward them, and Waverly leans forward, trying to read it before it gets any closer.

“Mile marker…”  Waverly tenses.

“What?  What is it, Wave?”

“Mile marker 63,” she whispers, gripping Nicole’s hand tighter.  “I _knew_ it.”

Well, shit.

“Maybe…” Nicole croaks, and has to clear her throat when she finds it difficult to swallow.  “Maybe it was just a mistake.  A misnumbered sign.  Or a prank.”

“Is that really what you think, Nicole?” Waverly asks, incredulous.

“…No.”  Nicole says with resignation.  She taps her thumb against the steering wheel while she thinks for a moment.  “Maybe one more sign?  Just to be sure?”

“Might as well,” Waverly concedes.  “Not like we’re actually going anywhere,” she mutters.

They spend the next mile in silence, the only sound the wind whistling through the rollbars of the Jeep.  Nicole feels her stomach twist, the unlikely yet familiar amalgamation of heat from adrenaline and icy dread slithering through her chest and seeping into her veins.  It’s a feeling she knows all too well, having experienced it nearly daily for the past couple of years. 

Why does shit like this always find them?

Neither of them says anything when the sign approaches this time.  It comes and goes, the white numerals against the green background taunting them like a giant, cosmic middle finger:  _Mile marker 63_.  Waverly slumps back against her seat, defeated, but her hand only tightens around Nicole’s.

“There’s no way this is some kind of prank, Nicole.”

“I know.”

“And that’s the same damn rock formation we’ve been passing over and over for I don’t know how long.  I’m not making this up, I swear.”  She sounds desperate, like she’s trying to convince herself, not just Nicole.

“I _know,_ baby.  I believe you.  I see it, too.”  Nicole pulls their linked hands over so that they are both resting in her lap instead.  “What do you think it means?”

“I…  I don’t know,” Waverly admits, her voice small.  Quiet.  Scared.  “It’s like we’re stuck in some kind of physics-defying loop.  What are we going to do, Nic?”

There’s a panic there, starting to rise.  Nicole can hear it in the slight waver in her voice.  See it in the rapid rising and falling of her chest.  Feel it in the insistent flexing of Waverly’s fingers around her own. 

Even after all of this time, Waverly still doubts herself sometimes, the fear that people will see her as a freak and run for the hills always lurking in the back of her mind. 

It breaks Nicole’s heart over and over.

“We’ll figure something out, baby.  We always do.”  Nicole turns to Waverly and looks earnestly into her eyes.  “Me and you, right?”

Waverly’s face softens slightly.

“Me and you.”

They ignore the sign completely when it passes by again, both of them deep in thought, lost in a sea of uncertainty and worry and apprehension.  Nicole is pretty sure they’ve gotten into worse situations than this before.  And they’ve always managed to find their way back out, and for the most part, no worse for the wear.  Waverly Earp is the smartest person she’s ever met, hands down.  And Nicole has unwavering faith that she’ll come up with a way to save their asses yet again.

Waverly shudders violently in the seat next to her, and instinctively wraps her free arm around her torso as a wave of goosebumps trails across her exposed skin.

“Wave?  You okay?”

Nicole realizes she’s squinting to see properly and pushes her Aviators up onto her head.  To her surprise, it’s just as dark as it was with them on, and she flips on the headlights out of habit.  A chill prickles along her spine, and she can see puffs of their breath ghosting between them as Waverly continues to shiver.

“So…  cold… all of… the sudden…” Waverly says through chattering teeth.

“Yeah, babe,” Nicole says, releasing Waverly’s hand in her lap to run her palm up and down the length of Waverly’s arm, trying to give her some warmth.  “The desert can get pretty cold at night.”

“At night?”  Waverly tucks her knees up against her chest the best she can around the seatbelt.  “Nicole, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon…”

Nicole’s hand stills on Waverly’s arm as she frowns and looks at the clock on the radio.  Waverly is right.  It’s only just after 4pm.  She’d been so caught up in trying to wrap her brain around how it was physically possible for them to be caught in some sort of weird loop, she had just assumed that the sun had set while she wasn’t paying attention.

Apparently not.

Waverly takes her sunglasses off, tossing them in the console between them, and Nicole can see the way her brow furrows as she purses her lips.  But before Waverly can say anything, the Jeep lurches sharply, and Nicole grips the steering wheel tightly with both hands to keep it moving forward in a straight line.  The headlights flicker as the Jeep continues to splutter, the needles of the gauges on the dash panel leaping and dancing like some kind of ominous ballet.

“The fuck…”  Nicole continues struggling to remain in control of the Jeep, both pedals no longer responding.

When the headlights blink out and the glow from the radio fades completely, Waverly braces herself between the dashboard and the back of the seat as the engine finally stalls and the Jeep eventually grinds to a halt in the middle of the highway.

“Did we just run out of gas?” she asks, trying to cover her unrest with mild irritation.

“Waverly, I just filled up like an hour ago.  We still had almost three-quarters of a tank.”  Nicole tries turning the key in the ignition several times, but there is no response whatsoever.  “Besides.  That wouldn’t have anything to do with the headlights and the gauges.  The battery is dead, too.”  She slaps her palms against the steering wheel in frustration with a loud _thump_.  “The whole _thing_ is dead!”

“Oh no,” Waverly mumbles, her shoulders sagging with the defeat of a war Nicole was not aware she had apparently been fighting.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do me a favor and check your phone?”

Nicole gives her a confused look at the request that seems to come out of nowhere, but she pulls her cell phone out of the pocket of her cargo shorts just the same.  She swipes at the screen and gets no response.  She even tries pressing the power button on the side, but still nothing.

“Shitsticks,” Waverly mutters.

“What is it?” Nicole asks, her voice anxious and concerned and colored with the slightest hint of curiosity.

“I…  I’ve seen something like this before.”

Nicole frowns and shifts in her seat to face Waverly.  That was not the kind of response she was expecting.

“What… being stuck in the Twilight Zone?”

“No.”  Waverly huffs out a laugh, forced and awkward and strained.  “No, not that part.”

“Then what?”  Nicole reaches out to take Waverly’s hand again.  “Talk to me, Wave.”

“Wynonna and I.  We, uh…  There was a Revenant.” 


	3. Breathing Life into My Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Punching in a Dream" - The Naked and Famous

There’s _always_ a Revenant. 

Their lives have been rife with demons and monsters.  Witches and cults.  Spirits and sprites and spiders.  But the one thing that has always remained constant is the Revenants. 

They’ve made a lot of progress in that department.  Wynonna has put down nearly as many of them as Edwin did back in 1967.  But there’s still an elusive handful of them, scattered to the four winds throughout the Ghost River Triangle.  Always just out of reach, keeping the Curse hanging over their heads like a guillotine on a hair trigger.

“It was actually right around the time that we met.”  Her eyes go soft for a moment, and she squeezes Nicole’s hand gently.  She shakes her head slightly, focusing herself, and continues.  “Bobo sent an assassin after us right after Wynonna got back into town.  Jim ‘Killer’ Miller.  He had spent so much of his life in the shadows, he had practically become a shadow himself.”  Waverly scrunches her face up and Nicole tries not to think about how adorable it is.  _“God,_ he was a shit-ticket.”

The corners of Nicole’s mouth twitch and she nods, encouraging Waverly to continue.

“Anyway, since he was basically a living shadow, he kind of fed on energy.  He like…  sucked the juice out of any kind of power source that was around.  And he was like a black hole for any light in the area.  Hell, he even made the sun go dark in the middle of the day.”

“Wait…” Nicole blurts out suddenly.  “You mean that call I got from some drunk idiot about how the world was ending because it was suddenly dark in the middle of the afternoon…  He was…  That wasn’t bullshit?  That was _you_ guys?”

“Uhhh…” Waverly giggles nervously and gives a little wave, her shoulders shrugged up sheepishly.  “Guilty as charged?”

Nicole rolls her eyes and shakes her head, unable to help her slight grin.

“Well, alright.  So what did this _Killer Miller_ guy do?  Pull you into some kind of shadow realm or something?  Is that where we are now?”

“No.”  Waverly’s face is serious again and she shifts in her seat.  “Nothing like that.  I mean, he made it dark in the middle of the afternoon.  He made the lights in the house go off and drained the batteries in all of our flashlights.  The engine in the generator wouldn’t fire.  And, uh…  my Jeep.”  She waves her hand as if to indicate their current predicament.  “He drained my Jeep so that we couldn’t get away.”

 _“Super,”_ Nicole mutters, her cop instincts kicking into gear as she scans the landscape for any sort of moving shadows.  “Okay, so that doesn’t explain the latest episode of _The Twilight Zone_.  But the rest of it…”  She turns back to Waverly.  “Wait.  It can’t be any kind of Revenant.  We’re almost fifteen hundred miles from the boundaries of the Triangle.”

“Nicole Haught.  After all the things we spend our time fighting, you haven’t learned by now that Revenants don’t have a monopoly on shit like this?” 

Nicole sighs and slumps back into her seat, watching the wispy white tendrils of her breath curling in front of her.  She’s so focused on them, she almost misses the larger flash of white that darts across the road several yards ahead of them.

“Holy shit!” she yells, snapping to attention and yanking the center console open to grab her revolver.  “Did you see that?”

Waverly, who had climbed halfway into the backseat trying to reach her previously discarded shirt, nearly falls in the floorboard, startled by the sudden outburst.

“See…  what…?”  Waverly asks, her voice muffled by the shirt she’s trying to pull over her head.

“There was a…”  Nicole points down the road.  “I thought I saw…”

“What?” Waverly says when her head finally pops free.  “Saw a what, Nic?”

Nicole braces her hand on the top of the windshield and hoists herself up so that she’s standing in her seat and leaning her hip against the upper rollbar for support.  She squints in the direction where she could have sworn she’d seen something large and white moving in the distance.  But the sprawling desert is quiet and still, and Nicole begins to wonder if the horizon was playing tricks on her spooked mind.

Just as she’s about to ease back down into the cab, a shrieking neigh pierces the silence and echoes all around them. 

“Was that…”   Waverly sits bolt upright in her seat and then struggles to pull herself up, joining Nicole where she’s looking over the top of the windshield through the open roof of the Jeep.  “Did you just…”

“Yeah.  I definitely heard it, too.”

“What was it?” Waverly asks, craning her neck as she tries to see farther in the low light.

“I don’t…”  Nicole clutches her Sky Hawk so tightly the stippling on the rubber grip leaves indentations in her palm.  “I mean.  A horse.  I think.  But, it sounded so…”

“I _know,”_ Waverly breathes, shuddering violently once more.

The haunting whinny reverberates in their chests again, sending a shiver down their spines.  Nicole frantically scans the horizon, searching for the source of the sound.

 _“There!”_   Nicole points at a pale form moving in the distance and raises her revolver to track its progress.

She’s seen a lot of things during their time together.  From getting up close and personal with the corpse of a Hala demon, truly kicking off her education into the world that Purgatory was hiding from its oblivious residents, to the Artaaglith – an honest to god _goat_ demon – that was incubating a host of homunculi with the intention of hatching them and using them to infest the entire town.  And everything in between. 

Nicole Haught has pretty much seen it all.

But she’s never seen anything like _this_.

It appears to be a normal horse at first, tossing its head from side to side as it gallops closer.  But as it closes the distance, Nicole has a hard time believing her own eyes. 

It travels along the side of a dirt-covered road, yet its hooves kick up no dust in its wake.  It huffs out labored breaths as it runs, little puffs of white bursting from each nostril, visible in the unnaturally chilly air, yet Nicole can clearly see through its ghostly body to the endless desert behind it.  With an eerie, silvery white glow, it shimmers against the twilight, yet it produces no shadow on the broken ground beneath it.

And then it is there.  Standing in front of the Jeep with its empty saddle and the reins of its bridle hanging free.  Swishing its tail as it paws at the pavement with a clacking noise that indicates it hooves are also shod.  Nickering lightly as it stares at them with hollow eyes, the only part of it that doesn’t shine.

A spectral horse.

They are looking right at a spectral horse.

They are looking right _through_ a spectral horse.

Without any warning, it throws its head back and whinnies again, and Nicole’s blood runs cold, suddenly an icy sludge pushing through her veins. 

Waverly jumps, startled so badly she nearly topples over off of her seat.  She clutches Nicole’s arm to steady herself, causing her aim to waver momentarily.  Nicole shifts the gun to her other hand and wraps her arm around Waverly’s shoulders, pulling her over to stand on the driver’s seat with her, holding Waverly closely against her side.

“What is it?” Nicole breathes, afraid to speak too loudly.

“I’m not sure.  It could be…” Waverly whispers back, chewing on her lip as her fingers dig into Nicole’s hip where she’s holding on for dear life.  “No, that’s not quite right.”

“What’s not?”  Nicole asks, not taking her eyes off of the ethereal creature.

It suddenly rears back with another ear-splitting neigh, and then moves a few paces off of the road.  It stops and looks back over its shoulder at them, nickering loudly as though trying to tell them something, and then turns and bolts off into the wasteland.

They watch it go in stunned silence until it’s finally out of sight.  Then Nicole looks down at Waverly, still a little slack-jawed.

“What were you saying it was?”

“I thought it might be a Nightmare,” Waverly murmurs.  When she sees the quizzical look Nicole is giving her, she continues.  “It’s a demon.  A sort of…  like a hell horse?   Kind of.”

Nicole begins climbing down from her perch, and once she’s standing next to the Jeep, she extends a hand to help Waverly down, too.

“But you don’t think this was that?” she asks as she makes her way around to the cargo hold where all of their gear is stowed away.

“No,” Waverly says with a frown and follows after Nicole.  “A Nightmare is usually oily black.  With flames that wreath its hooves and trail from its nostrils.  Their eyes are supposed to be made of hellfire, and their mane and tail are ragged and hang like tattered pennants.”

“Hmm.”  Nicole begins pulling stacks of clothing out of one of the duffle bags wedged near the wheel well.  “So definitely not a Nightmare, then.”

“No…”  Waverly trails off when Nicole suddenly strips her softball shirt over her head.

“So... what, then?” Nicole asks, peeling her tank top off now, too.  “A spirit?  A spectre?”

“Maybe a ghost,” Waverly mumbles, distracted by what Nicole is doing.

“Great.  So we’re dealing with _Ghost Riders in the Sky,”_ Nicole says sarcastically as she unbuckles her belt.

“It wasn’t in the sky,” Waverly points out.  Nicole grumbles and unbuttons her cargo shorts.  “And there was no rider.”

“Waverly.”

“Sorry.  Wynonna’s inappropriate sarcasm is contagious.”

Nicole cocks her head to the side for a minute, as if considering something.  “Fair enough,” she eventually says, dropping her shorts around her ankles and stepping out of them.

“What _are_ you doing?” Waverly finally asks with exasperation, looking around as if someone is suddenly going to appear out of nowhere to see her girlfriend stripping naked in the middle of a deserted highway.

“Changing,” Nicole says simply, hopping on one foot while she pulls on a pair of jeans.

“But…  why?”

“Because it’s cold?” she answers while she begins buttoning up her flannel shirt.  “Because my flip-flops aren’t exactly the best footwear for traipsing through the desert?”

“We… are traipsing through the desert?”  Waverly asks hesitantly, but Nicole can detect a hint of something else in her voice.

“Look,” Nicole says, pointing at the side of the road where the horse had run away.  “It didn’t disturb the dust when it was galloping toward us.  But it left horseshoe tracks when it took off into the desert.”

“Yeah…?”  Waverly narrows her eyes at Nicole.

“So we’re going to follow it,” she says, pulling her hiking boots over her thick wool socks and lacing them up tightly.

“We are?  You don’t want to stay here with the Jeep?”

“Waverly Earp.”  Nicole cups Waverly’s cheek in her hand, leaning in so close their noses are almost touching.  “When has ‘stay in the car’ _ever_ worked on you?”

Waverly giggles, her eyes filled with a mixture of relief and excitement.  Nicole pulls her into a tight hug and kisses the top of her head.

“But…” Waverly says suddenly, pushing away from Nicole.  “I didn’t pack anything like…  _that_ …” she says, gesturing at the new clothes Nicole is wearing.

“We were supposed to be camping in the mountains, Waverly,” Nicole deadpans, reaching back into the cargo hold.  “Did you really think I wouldn’t bring the right attire for you?”

“Well, I gue—”  She’s cut off when a pair of jeans smacks her in the face.

“Now get changed and help me zip the top back on the Jeep.” 

She laughs when Waverly flips her off, then sets about pulling their hiker’s backpacks with all of their gear out of the back and propping them against the tire while Waverly gets dressed.  They get the top back on and do their best to push the dead Jeep to the side of the road before securing it and stowing the keys away in one of the zippered pouches of their packs.

Nicole helps Waverly shrug her shoulders into her backpack, teasing her that it’s nearly as tall as she is.  She checks to make sure there’s an extra box of ammo in her own pack and then hefts it onto her back.  After tucking her revolver into the waistband of her jeans, she holds a hand out to Waverly with a grin.

Waverly smiles back, and for a brief moment, Nicole thinks the sun is shining in the darkness again.

“Would you like to go on an adventure with me, Waverly Earp?”


	4. The Dust Has Only Just Begun to Form

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Hide & Seek" - Imogen Heap

“Do you think it’s actually night yet?”

The ache in Nicole’s muscles tells her they’ve been walking for quite a while now.  Yet still the eerie twilight remains.  Far from light, though not quite dark, they’re stuck in an everlasting dusk that paints the surrounding world with shadows.  Black bleeds into blue and purple, with just a hint of green, and the ocean of sand provides an undertone of yellow to the canvas.  It almost looks as if the desert has been bruised by the reality that twists around it.

It’s unnerving to look at the sky and see nothing but a faint glow.  There’s no sun.  No moon or stars.  Not even any clouds that would explain their absence.  Just a dim light, dull and muted like a lamp shining from behind a curtain.

Suddenly, every cheesy, made-for-television sci-fi movie that Waverly has ever made Nicole sit through flashes through her mind and she’s half convinced they’re being held captive in a mysterious dome, blocking out the sky and forcing them to act out this crazy virtual reality scenario.  She wonders if walking far enough in the same direction will eventually run them into an invisible wall that will shimmer and glitch with the impact.  If there is some villain twirling his mustache as he watches them on a bank of monitors, laughing maniacally while his silhouette is backlit dramatically by the glow of the electronics in his secret laboratory. 

She snorts at the overwhelming absurdity.

But then she remembers that they’re trapped in some kind of pocket dimension.  Slaves to a reality that defies physics and logic and the rules of time.  A realm full of dead batteries and spectral horses and a chill in the air that leaves goosebumps in its wake.

_Maybe not so absurd after all._

“I don’t know,” Nicole admits, wishing her internal clock wasn’t spinning out of control like a compass in the Peruvian magnetite dunes.  “I don’t think there’s any way of really telling.”

“Fudgenuggets,” Waverly mutters, stopping to take a sip of water from one of her canteens.  She stows it away again and leans forward, resting her hands on her knees and rolling her shoulders beneath the straps of her giant pack.

“We can stop,” Nicole says, stepping closer to touch Waverly’s shoulder.  “If you want.  We can stop.”

“No.”  Waverly straightens up, cracking her neck with a sigh.  “No, we should keep going.  It feels like we aren’t even gaining any ground yet.”

“Wave.”  Nicole slides her pack off of her shoulders, leaning it against her thigh.  “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired, sore, and starving.  We should stop and rest.  Pushing ourselves to exhaustion isn’t going to do either of us any good.”

“Oh, thank _god.”_   Waverly shrugs out of her own pack, dropping it at her feet and plopping down on it dramatically.

Nicole laughs and leans down to kiss the top of her head before unclipping the Browning Black Label Shock N’ Awe Tomahawk from the rigging of her backpack.  When Waverly raises an eyebrow at her, she just winks and straps the polymer sheath to her belt.

“Most of the food is still back in the cooler, but I packed some non-perishables in there for when we were supposed to be hiking if you want to dig them out.”  Nicole carefully picks her way through a cluster of barrel cacti and runs her palm along the fibrous bark of the yucca that’s growing at the center.  “I’m gonna sacrifice some limbs off of this Joshua tree and get a fire started before I set up the tent.”

“What _kind_ of non-perishables?” Waverly asks, skeptical.

“Trail mix.  Granola bars.  Some dried fruit.  And there’s several packages of jerky.”

 _“Jerky…?”_   Waverly whines, wrinkling her nose.

“Yes, _jerky,”_ Nicole says, already shucking sections of bark from a large branch with her hatchet.  “Do you trust me or not?”

“I guess,” Waverly mumbles.

“Then just look in your pack, babe.”  Nicole collects the bark shavings into a neat pile at the base of the tree and then begins chopping at one of the smaller limbs within reach.

Waverly gets distracted for a moment, watching the muscles of Nicole’s forearm beneath the rolled up sleeve of her flannel flex and ripple with every strike of her hatchet.  She eventually snaps out of it when her stomach gurgles loudly, and she pushes up onto her knees so she can open the pack she’s been sitting on.

The first thing she notices is a neatly folded blanket tucked across the top that she definitely did not put in there herself.  Her brow furrows as she peels it back, and the next thing she sees is a Tupperware container wedged across the top of large compartment in the middle of the pack.  When she pulls it out and removes the lid, she can’t help but huff out a small laugh at Nicole’s organizational skills.

Lined up in perfect rows are individual Ziploc bags, sealed and marked with color-coded dots, each one containing carefully measured portions of the dried foods Nicole had previously mentioned.  Waverly’s eyes light up when she sees the stack of vacuum-sealed packages on one side of the container.

“Oh, my god!” Waverly squeals, and Nicole pauses her chopping to look back over her shoulder with a grin.  “You got the Primal Strips meatless vegan jerky I love so much!”

“Did you _really_ think I was going to make you eat my teriyaki steak strips?”

“Well.  How was I supposed to know?”  Waverly pouts.  “You’re addicted to those stupid things.”  She crosses her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow.  “And don’t think I haven’t found where you keep your secret stash of empty packages in the trunk of your squad car,” she scolds.

Nicole throws her head back, laughing.  “It’s not a _secret stash,_ Wave.  I just toss them back there until I get a chance to throw them away so they don’t smell up the cab of the cruiser.”

“Mmhmm.  Sure.  Whatever you say, Officer,” Waverly teases.  She tilts her head to the side, looking at Nicole with curiosity.  “Where did you get all of these, anyway?  It’s not like you can just buy them at Fairway’s like you do your McSweeny’s.”

“Waverly Earp,” Nicole says, shaking her head.  “We’ve been planning this vacation for _months_.  The _first thing_ I did was call that Organic Roots store you like in Edmonton and order a case of it for you.”

“You even got the Thai Peanut and the Hot & Spicy kinds,” Waverly says, running a finger over the stack of packages.

“Yeah…”  Nicole rubs at the back of her neck.  “They’re your favorites, aren’t they?” she asks with a frown.

 _“God,_ I love you,” Waverly breathes.

Nicole’s frown fades, the concern on her face melting away.  “I love you, too, Wave,” she says quietly, content just to watch Waverly sort through her snacks for a few moments longer.  When she’s pulled a couple of the Ziploc bags out and laid them next to one of her packages of jerky before putting the lid back on the container, Nicole shakes herself out of her daydream state.  “Can you grab a package of my jerky and some fruit out of my pack for me please, baby?”

“Sure!”  Waverly hauls herself up and moves over to Nicole’s pack to retrieve the items she requested.

“And maybe a granola bar, too,” Nicole adds with a smile before going back to chopping off the branch of the Joshua tree.

It doesn’t take her long to chop deeply enough into the limb for her to hook her arms around it and use her weight to snap it free.  Pleased with her victory, Nicole tosses the branch out into the open area past the barrel cacti and stoops to gather up the bark strips.  Once she’s clear of the vegetation cluster, she uses the pick side of the tomahawk to dig out a small pit in the sand – down to the solid, compacted dirt and clay – and deposits the kindling.

Waverly offers her a piece of her teriyaki jerky and, keeping her dirty hands clear, Nicole takes it with her mouth, playfully nipping at Waverly’s fingers in the process.  Waverly giggles and pushes her away and Nicole hums while she chews on the dried meat, realizing just exactly how hungry she really is.

Wasting no more time, Nicole hacks several notches along the length of the wood and then props it against a large rock nearby.  She brings her booted foot down with considerable force, pleased when the branch snaps easily at one of its new weak points.  She repeats the process several more times until she has a respectable stack of easily manageable pieces of firewood.

“I take it you’ve done this before,” Waverly says, sucking on a piece of dried apple while she watches Nicole carefully arrange several of her small logs in a teepee formation above the pile of kindling.

 _“Survivorman: Haunted Desert Edition?”_ Nicole asks, wiping her hands on her jeans and making her way over to her pack where she starts digging through one of the small side pockets.  Waverly rolls her eyes and feeds Nicole another piece of jerky.  “With my granddad,” she answers with a sad smile after swallowing what’s in her mouth.

“But your family…”  Waverly frowns.  “You don’t…”

“Not anymore.”  Nicole rests back on her heels for a moment.  “And my grandparents have been gone for years now, anyway.  Since before all of…”  Nicole waves a hand and Waverly reaches out to let her fingers curl around Nicole’s knee.  “But when we were growing up, Hayley and I used to spend part of our summer vacations every year with them on their ranch.  Granddad would always take us out into the mountains for a week, and that’s when he taught us all of this stuff.  Hayley _hated_ it,” Nicole adds with a laugh, “but I looked forward to the trip every summer.”

“Sounds like fun,” Waverly says, gently squeezing Nicole’s knee.  She pops a couple of dried banana chips in Nicole’s mouth and chases them with a quick peck on the lips.  Nicole grins and chomps on them loudly while she finishes finding what she was looking for in her pack, pulling out a small metal waterproof case with _Everstryke_ stamped on the front.  “What’s that?” Waverly asks, leaning in for a closer look.

“It’s called an Everstryke Match,” Nicole says, unscrewing the ridged cap to show her a small, glistening metal cylinder.  “It’s guaranteed to light, even in rain or sleet or snow.”

“Does it also deliver letters?” Waverly deadpans, causing Nicole to snort.

“Funny.  You’re a funny girl,” she shoots back flatly, and Waverly responds by sticking her tongue out.  “It’s a perma-match.  It’s non-consumable.”

“So it’s a portable burning bush.”

_“Waverly…”_

“Sorry.  Sorry,” Waverly giggles, kissing Nicole’s shoulder.  “Show me how it works?” she adds, softer.

Nicole hesitates a moment longer, waiting to see if there will be any more smartass comments from the peanut gallery.  When Waverly only smiles up at her from where her head is resting against Nicole’s shoulder, she holds the device up and begins to explain.

“You see the white thing poking out of the center?”  Waverly nods, and Nicole continues.  “It’s a wick.  And it soaks in the lighter fluid that’s stored in this reservoir,” she says, giving the rectangle case a little shake.  “It runs all the way through this ferro rod here.”  She indicates the metal cylinder, and Waverly squints at it, confused.

“What’s a ferro rod?”

“Mmmm…” Nicole frowns.  “Well, it’s a synthetic polymer that ignites when oxidized.  But that’s not important.”  She looks at Waverly and shrugs.  “Basically, it’s the same thing that the striker of a cigarette lighter is made out of.”

“You mean the flint?”

“It’s not actually flint,” Nicole says, shaking her head.  Waverly starts to argue, but Nicole continues.  “People _call_ it the flint.  But it’s not _actually_ flint,” she corrects.  Waverly looks skeptical, but concedes the point.  _“Anyway,”_ Nicole starts again.  “You take the ‘match,’ which is actually the ferro rod and wick, and you strike it against the flint that runs along the side of the case.”

Nicole demonstrates, striking the rod a couple of times against the flint.  A shower of sparks cascades and eventually catches the wick, immediately producing a strong, bright flame.

“Ta-dah!”  Nicole grins proudly and Waverly looks sufficiently impressed.  But then, as quickly as the flame appeared, it goes out with a soft _puff._   Nicole pouts and looks at Waverly.  “Did you just blow out my match?”

“No,” Waverly says defensively, shaking her head with a furrowed brow.  “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole mumbles.  “It just seemed like something happened.  Let me try again.”  She strikes the rod again, producing another flame that burns brightly for a few seconds and then puffs out in a flash.  “Okay, that’s really strange,” Nicole says, looking around, the hair on her arms suddenly standing on end.  “There’s not even any kind of breeze.  What keeps blowing out my flame?”

Waverly stiffens next to her, tightening her grip around Nicole’s bicep where her hand had been resting casually as they leaned together.  For a moment, they had forgotten where they were.  Why they were here.  But now it all comes back to them in a rush, carried on the rising tide of adrenaline.

Nicole touches the grip of her Sky Hawk, still tucked securely in her waistband.  “Let me, uhh…  Let me try to get this fire started, Wave.  Stay close, okay?”

“Yeah,” Waverly breathes, pushing up off of her pack she’d been sitting on to squat next to the pit Nicole had dug.  “Okay.”

Nicole stoops low, cradling the case with the flint inside the teepee of logs she’d built.  She gives Waverly a _here goes nothing_ look, and strikes the ferro rod directly over the bundle of kindling nestled in the center.  The match ignites easily, even catching a few flakes of the bark so that they glow with fresh embers.  They start to breathe a collective sigh of relief, but an instant later, all traces of flame have been snuffed out.

“Fuck,” Nicole mutters and repeats the entire process.  Again, her little nest begins to glow, and again the spark is gone before it can become anything more than just a brief flash.

“Nicole…” Waverly starts, but Nicole cuts her off.

“No, Wave.”  Nicole’s voice is strained, her posture agitated.  “I _know_ I can start a fire.”  She tries again, still unsuccessful.  “This is…  I don’t know _what_ this is.  But I _swear_ I know how to make a fire.”

“Nicole,” Waverly says again, laying a hand on Nicole’s bare forearm.  “I’m trying to tell you.  This happened before, too.”

“With the Revenant?”  Nicole rocks back on her heels, still fiddling with the Everstryke Match.

“Yeah.  I told you he drained all of our batteries and everything.”  Nicole nods, stopping to look at Waverly.  “Well…  Wynonna and I started a bonfire to try and keep him at bay for a little while longer.  But even that didn’t work.”  She shakes her head, her eyes going distant for a moment as she relives the memory.  “He snuffed out a bonfire in full blaze like it was nothing.”

“So, no fire.”  Nicole lets herself fall back on her ass, defeated.

“No.  I’m guessing no fire,” Waverly agrees, joining her in the dirt.

“Fuck,” Nicole breathes again.  “Wait,” she says after a minute, turning to Waverly.  “If you already knew…”  Nicole narrows her eyes with a frown.  “Why did you even let me go through all of that?  Just to laugh at me?”

“No,” Waverly says quickly, shaking her head.  “I didn’t _know_ it wouldn’t work.  I mean, just because Killer Miller extinguished our bonfire, doesn’t mean it’s the same here.”  She pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping one arm around them while the other arm waves around wildly as she talks.  “First of all, Wynonna already sent his shadowy ass back to hell, so we know _this_ can’t be him.”

“Good riddance to Shadow Boy,” Nicole mumbles.  Waverly rolls her eyes and presses on with her rant.

“Second…  We’re in Southern California.  I mean, we’re _nowhere near_ the borders of the Ghost River Triangle in Canada.  So even if Killer Miller had some kind of Revenant relatives, it _still_ couldn’t be that.  And, anyway.  Nothing like _this,”_ she accentuates by gesturing at the dimly lit sky, “happened when he was around.”

Nodding, Nicole fidgets with the metal case in her hands, flicking the lid open and closed in a similar fashion as one would a Zippo lighter.  She wishes she had her Fidget Cube to alleviate some of her anxiousness.  Waverly reaches over and stills her hands.

“Besides,” she says, a glint in her eyes as she nudges Nicole with her shoulder.  “You were _so excited_ about your _magic fire._   It was too adorable for me to stop you.”

Nicole shoves at her playfully and she topples over, sprawled on her back in the sand, consumed by a fit of giggles.  Nicole leans over, climbing slightly on top of her, and dips her head, drinking in the laughter as it spills from Waverly’s lips.

The moment stretches between them, time standing still in an entirely different way, before Nicole finally pulls back from the kiss, resting their foreheads together.  They linger a little longer, content to breathe each other in, until Waverly shivers beneath her again, shattering the illusion and drawing them both back into the warped reality that holds them captive.

Rolling awkwardly off to the side, Nicole props herself up on her elbow and looks down at Waverly with a sigh.  Waverly’s hand is still twisted in the front of her flannel and she reaches up to cover it with her own, noting the slight chill of Waverly’s skin.

“I should get the tent set up.  We’re gonna need all the shelter we can get out here, especially without any fire.  I only have a couple of blankets, but we’ll have to make do.”

“Make do?”  Waverly chuckles lightly.  “Nic, we have sleeping bags that are rated for the _arctic._   I think they can withstand the _desert.”_

“Waverly.”

“Yes?”

“Where are the sleeping bags.”  She says it more like a statement than a question and quirks an eyebrow at Waverly, patiently waiting for her answer.

“They’re in the…” Waverly immediately starts, but then hesitates.  Nicole smirks when Waverly’s eyes go wide with realization.  “They’re in…  the Jeep…”

“Mmhmm.”

“Shit,” Waverly mumbles.  “Wait…  They’re in the Jeep.”

“Yeah…”  Nicole looks at Waverly with confusion.  “I think we just established that?”

“They’re in the _Jeep,_ Nicole.  With the _tent.”_   Waverly pulls up into a seated position and looks down at Nicole.  “How do you plan on setting up the tent when it is still in the Jeep, too?”

Nicole laughs at the smartass look Waverly is giving her and shakes her head.  “Not _that_ tent,” she says.  “It was far too bulky to lug along with us out here.  Same with the sleeping bags.”  She sits up and kisses Waverly on the nose.  “But I’m carrying a shelter-half.”

“A what?”  Waverly scrunches up her nose, wiping at the kiss Nicole left behind.

“A shelter-half,” Nicole says again, pushing herself up until she’s standing.  “Actually, you’re carrying one, too.”  She winks and walks over to kneel down by her pack.

“A… _what?”_  Waverly climbs to her feet much more slowly than Nicole did.

Nicole unhooks a row of clips on the bottom of her hiker’s pack, loosening the row of straps and allowing a tightly rolled sheet of canvas to drop free.  She does the same thing to Waverly’s pack and then holds both of the rolls up with a grin.

“We each have a shelter-half as part of the emergency supplies included with our packs.”

“I don’t know what that _means,”_ Waverly grumps, waving her arms in the air dramatically before poking Nicole in the ribs. 

“It’s a pup-tent, Waverly.”  Nicole laughs and hands over one of the rolls.  Waverly takes it, her lower lip sticking out in an exaggerated pout.

“Why didn’t you just _say_ that?” she whines.

“Because,” Nicole says, leaning down to kiss the pouty lip.  “That’s just the vernacular.  It’s _called_ a shelter-half.”  She drags her nose up Waverly’s cheek until her breath is ghosting across her ear.  “Besides,” she whispers, making Waverly shudder.  “You know I love it when I get to teach you something.”

Waverly groans and leans into Nicole for a minute, but then she plants her palms right against her chest and shoves her away.  Nicole throws her head back and laughs heartily while Waverly continues to glare at her, eventually throwing up her free hand in surrender, still chuckling at Waverly’s antics.

“Okay, okay,” she concedes, grinning widely.  “Let’s just get it set up.  You wanna help me?”

She’s still grumbling, but Waverly nods and asks what she needs to do.  Nicole has her remove the larger stones and pebbles from the flattest area they can find near the Joshua tree, using her boot to sweep it clear the best she can, and hands her a plastic tarp to spread out over the sand. 

While Waverly handles that, Nicole pops the two metal supports off the backs of each of their packs.  Two of them are solid and serve as support poles, the other two pull apart into four sections each, creating a total of eight spiked stakes.  She removes the thick nylon cord that’s laced through the shoulder straps, producing two lengths of rope, roughly five feet long each.

She and Waverly carefully unroll the two sections of canvas over the tarp, snapping them together in the middle to form one larger sheet.  Nicole shows Waverly how to insert the support rod at the back end of the tent, securing it by threading the rope through the loop at the top, and then does the same with hers at the front end.

They stand the poles up together, making sure they stay even, and then pull the ropes tight.  The canvas rises with them, instantly tenting in the middle.  Waverly’s eyes grow wide, and she smiles, impressed.  Nicole uses the flat side of her hatchet to drive the stake while Waverly holds her rope in place and then they repeat the process on Nicole’s end.

After that, it’s just a matter of driving the other three stakes through the loops at the base of the canvas on each side until all six are set and the sides of the small tent are secured.  They fasten the toggles on the flaps at the back end of the tent, leaving only the entrance at the front as a way in and out.

When it’s all said and done, the peak of the tent only stands three feet tall, not even quite to Nicole’s waist.  But it’s eight feet long and almost six feet wide at the base, and though it will be somewhat cramped quarters, there’s definitely enough room for both of them to lie next to each other and still have space in the back to tuck their packs in safely.

Nicole takes a minute to rest against the large rock she’d used to bust up the branches for the now useless firewood, and Waverly feeds her a few more pieces of jerky and breaks up her granola bar into pieces so she can give them to her a bite at a time.  Nicole argues that she’s already wiped her hands off and can feed herself now, but Waverly insists with a shy smile, and Nicole has never been one to tell Waverly Earp _no._

“We should probably dig out the blankets and get ready to settle into for the night,” Nicole says when Waverly leans into her, shivering again. 

The active work had kept them warmer, momentarily fighting off the unnatural chill in the air.  But now that they’re slowing down again, the white puffs of their breath crystallizing in the air seem even more pronounced than before.

“If it even _is_ night,” Waverly mutters darkly. 

Nicole gives her a gentle squeeze and kisses the top of her head before returning to their packs.  Waverly makes sure the containers of food are properly sealed again and drops to her knees next to Nicole to stow them away once more.

“I…  I didn’t pack any blankets, Nic,” Waverly says with a frown when she opens her pack and sees the neatly folded blanket right at the top again.

“I know you didn’t,” Nicole laughs as she pulls two thick, woolen blankets from the depths of her pack, the tight, precise rolls tied close with a piece of twine at the top and bottom.  “Remind me to give you a lesson on _packing for emergencies_ sometime.”

“Hey!” Waverly protests, smacking her on the shoulder.  “I packed important things.”

“Mmhmm,” Nicole smirks.  “The flyswatter.  The travel-sized shampoo and conditioner.  The hand-held fan.  All _very important_ things.”  She nudges Waverly with her elbow.  “Although, the bottle of Alberta Premium was certainly an interesting addition.”

“The whiskey was Wynonna’s contribution,” Waverly mumbles, rolling her eyes.  “She said it’s not really camping without alcohol.”  Waverly’s cheeks start to flush pink.  “You took out all of my stuff to put your stuff in?” she asks so quietly Nicole has to lean closer to hear her.

“Of course not,” Nicole says, wrapping her arm around Waverly’s shoulders.  “Everything you packed is still in there, albeit a little more organized.  I even added the batteries you forgot for the radio you brought.”  Waverly’s face turns a little redder and she buries in Nicole’s shoulder.  “Hey,” Nicole says gently.  “All I did was add a few extra things for emergencies.  Extra underwear and socks.  Blankets.  … _Food.”_   She pinches lightly at Waverly’s ribs until she hears her giggling into her shoulder.  “Toilet paper.”

 _“Oh…”_   Waverly looks up, her eyes going wide.  “Uhh…  speaking of toilet paper…”  She makes an adorably urgent face and Nicole can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, I thought you might say that,” she says, digging into Waverly’s pack and pulling out the roll.  “Why don’t you go find a spot behind that cluster of sagebrush over there.”  She points to an area roughly fifty yards from their little campsite and hands Waverly the roll.  “I’ll start putting the blankets in the tent, and then I’ll go when you’re done, okay?”

Waverly nods, a little embarrassed by the whole thing even though Nicole seems completely unfazed by it.  She pulls the second blanket out of Waverly’s pack and then grabs both of the ones out of her own.  She watches for a moment as Waverly walks away and then checks another one of the small pockets on her pack with a smile before gathering the blankets up in her arms and moving over to the tent. 

Nicole waits until Waverly reaches the sagebrush, making a face and then ducking out of view.  She can’t help but shake her head and chuckle to herself before dropping down and crawling into the tent, careful to keep her dirty boots from touching anything as she scoots around on her knees.

By the time Waverly returns, she’s got one of the blankets spread flat over the tarp, and the other three piled into a sort of nest in the center of the tent.  The two packs are lined against the closed flaps at the back of the tent, with one of their canteens left out within arm’s reach.

Nicole helps Waverly into the tent and points to the corner by the front flap where Waverly is supposed to stow her boots before crawling in any farther, and then she hurries off to take care of her own business.  When she gets back, Waverly is already burrowed down into the nest of blankets, peeking out at her from under the one that’s pulled all the way up to her nose.

A warmth blooms in Nicole’s chest that makes her forget about the cold, and she can’t keep from stealing glances at her adorable girlfriend while she sits in the entrance and removes her own boots.  Once she’s all the way in, she pulls the front flaps closed and secures the toggles.  It’s completely dark inside the tent now, but it’s easy to feel her way over to Waverly, who has lifted the edge of the blankets just enough for Nicole to slip under them with her.

She’s barely even settled on her back before Waverly is already latching onto her, huddling close for warmth.  It’s awkward and uncomfortable, and she wishes for the spongy foam rollouts packed in the Jeep next to their sleeping bags.  She’s going to be so stiff in the morning.

After a few moments of shifting around trying to find a position that doesn’t hurt her neck, Nicole reaches back with one arm and pulls her pack closer so she can rest her head on it.  Waverly finally raises her head, resting her chin on Nicole’s shoulder while she speaks.

“What, no magic pillows in that _bag of holding_ of yours?”

“No, Waverly.”  Nicole rolls her eyes with a grin.  “The pillows are back in the Jeep with the rest of the regular camping stuff.  No magic pillows.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Waverly giggles.  “Looks like _I_ found a couple of magic pillows,” she says, laying her head back down on Nicole’s chest.

Nicole snorts, but pulls Waverly closer, her arms wrapped around her tightly.  She knows Waverly is going to be freezing through the night, and she’ll have to do her best to serve as the bonus blanket while they sleep.

It’s quiet for several minutes, and Nicole thinks Waverly might already be drifting off to sleep.  But then she feels Waverly’s fingers winding themselves a little tighter into her flannel shirt where she’s gripping it against Nicole’s side.

“Nicole?”  Waverly whispers shakily.

“Yeah, baby?” Nicole answers, kissing Waverly’s forehead and letting her lips just linger there after.

“I…” she hesitates.  Nicole squeezes her a little tighter.  “I’m scared,” she finally confesses into the darkness, almost like it won’t really count if no one sees her say it.

From the moment they had realized their situation, they had been going non-stop.  The encounter with the ghostly horse.  Changing clothes and preparing the Jeep to leave it behind.  Trudging into the desert after a trail of hoof prints.  Stopping to set up camp when they finally gave in to hunger and exhaustion.  Chopping wood and trying to start a fire and setting up the tent.

But now, for the first time, they are _still._   And reality is setting in with the kind of gravity that is staggering.  This isn’t the camping trip they were supposed to be on.  The cuteness of setting up camp together and lightly flirting while teasing about not knowing anything about how to do it has worn off, and all that’s left in its wake is the cold, hard truth.

_They’re trapped here._

They’re trapped here, and they don’t even know where – or when? – _here_ is.  They don’t know how long they will be here – or really even how long they’ve _already_ been here – and have no idea how to find their way back out.

Nicole brought plenty of trail food and both packs have four built-in canteens each, all filled with spring water, but even that won’t last for more than a handful of days.  Will people start to miss them?  Will anyone even realize they’re gone?  Does time move the same way in the real world as it does in here?  They have no answers to any of these questions, which is daunting, to say the very least.

And on top of that, they have no idea who – or _what_ – is causing all of this in the first place.  Is this all on the ghostly horse they met on the road?  It didn’t seem particularly aggressive, but they have no idea what might await them when – or _if_ – they eventually track it down.

Waverly has been talking about a Revenant that had some similar powers, but they both know without a shadow of a doubt that it can’t be a Revenant doing _this._   Not all the way out here.  Plus, Killer Miller wasn’t able to alter the physics of the real world.  That they know of.  Only steal its energy and snuff out light sources.

Nicole desperately wishes she had the right words to say.  To comfort.  To reassure.  To be the rock that Waverly needs her to be.  But to be perfectly honest, she’s worse off than Waverly is right now. 

Waverly’s experience with Killer Miller might not be exactly the same as what they’re facing now, but at least it’s still something.  A strange familiarity.  And the knowledge that they did finally defeat him and return everything at the Homestead to normal.  It’s not much, but it’s something she can hold on to. 

Nicole, on the other hand, doesn’t even have that.  She has her encounters with the multitude of monsters they’ve encountered in the Ghost River Triangle over the past two years.  And Waverly’s account of what had happened with the Revenant that was more shadow than man.  But knowing the facts is not the same as experiencing them first hand, and the prospect of staring down the unknown is, quite frankly, _terrifying._

So she doesn’t have a grand speech, or deep words of wisdom, or one of her bumper sticker encouragements that Wynonna is so fond of.  Instead, all Nicole has to offer in this quiet moment of vulnerability between them is the truth, honest and open and _real_.

“So am I,” she breathes against Waverly’s skin, her lips trembling around the words.

There are so many more things they could try to say.  So many scripted responses or empty sentiments.  But they don’t need hollow conversation.  Not now.  Words will fall flat, and they know it.  They _understand_ it.  Their emotions are raw, taking hold in the darkness, and what they _need_ is each other.

Waverly tips her face up until her nose bumps against Nicole’s and they find each other’s lips.  Nicole can taste the salt, but she’s not sure which one of them is crying.  Maybe both.  The kiss is long and languid, each of them pouring everything they are feeling into it, saying everything they need to say, until the tension starts to bleed away, their bodies relaxing against each other.

With a final brush of her tongue against Nicole’s, Waverly eventually pulls away and nestles her head back into the crook of Nicole’s neck, throwing her leg up over Nicole’s hips to snuggle as close as she possibly can.  Nicole’s arms are tight around her waist and shoulders, and as the rhythm of their breathing falls into sync, the weight of the day finally presses in on them, pulling them under into a dreamless sleep.

Nicole has no idea how much time has passed when she awakens later with a start.  Her jerky movements jostle Waverly awake, too, and she sits up, rubbing her eyes.

“Wha…?” she mumbles, disoriented.

Achy and stiff and full of unease, Nicole pushes herself up to join Waverly, her hand immediately going to the grip of the Sky Hawk revolver she’d tucked under the pack she was using as a makeshift pillow.

“Nicole?” Waverly tries again, her voice still thick with sleep.

“Shh…”  Nicole fumbles in the dark to free herself from the blankets and crawls over to the flaps, feeling her way along the seam until she has unfastened all of the toggles.

Waverly crawls up next to her, and together they sit quietly, peering out into the eerie twilight.  She raises an eyebrow at Nicole, gripping at her sleeve, but Nicole just shakes her head, her gun still trained on a point just outside the tent, and tilts her chin, indicating for Waverly to keep listening.

Just when she thinks she’s starting to lose her mind – that the ghosts from her nightmares were playing tricks on her now conscious mind – they hear it again.

There’s no mistaking this time.  It splits the silence like a crack of thunder and echoes through the desert around them.

_The sound of a woman wailing._


	5. The Ghosts That We Knew Will Flicker from View

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Ghosts That We Knew" - Mumford & Sons

“Mirages only happen in the heat, right?  Because of the sun?”

“Technically mirages can be caused at night by the refracted light of an astronomical object and—”

“Waverly.”

“And technically this wouldn’t be a mirage.  It would be a hallucination.  Which is a completely differe—”

_“Waverly.”_

“Sorry.  I’m just…  freaking out a little.  I mean.  Are you seeing this, too?  Because…”

“Yes.  I am definitely seeing it, too.  Hence the question about mirages.”

“Right.”  Waverly shakes her head and blinks a couple of times.  “Right.”

They had scrambled to pull their boots back on in the cramped confines of the pup-tent, nearly knocking down the support pole in the process.  Nicole hadn’t even bothered to re-lace the top few pairs of eyelets, and is desperately trying to ignore the way her normally well-fitting boots are slipping obnoxiously on her heels with every step she takes through the shifting sand.

Together, the two of them had spilled out of the tent into the night – is it really night? – Nicole gripping her Sky Hawk almost as tightly as Waverly was gripping her hand.  The sound of the wailing was ringing all around them, a trick of this twisted desert because there was nothing for it to actually bounce off of, and they hadn’t known which direction it was coming from.

Nicole’s instincts had been grinding their gears, unable to process the shift in reality, until Waverly had laid her other hand on Nicole’s shoulder to ground her.  Her calming touch had soothed the raw nerves, and at Waverly’s urging, they had closed their eyes and listened – really _listened_ – until they had been able to shut out the false echoes and could _feel_ the sorrow of the crying woman calling to them.

She’d led them away from the makeshift camp, one hand leveling the revolver in front of her, the other pulling Waverly, now wielding a piece of firewood from the nearby pile Nicole had chopped, carefully behind.    They could hear no other noises – no voices, no sounds of a struggle, no artificial humming of manmade equipment – nothing to explain what might be causing the woman to wail.  Waverly had muttered something about a siren’s call, and Nicole had hoped her imagination was just getting away from her, but if she’s being honest, she’d wondered just how close that might be to the truth.  Were they allowing themselves to be lured to their demise?

But here they are, still hand and hand, the gun and stick hanging limply at their sides as they both gape dumbly at the vision before them.

Wandering an erratic pattern approximately ten yards ahead of them is a woman.  A _beautiful_ woman.  Rich olive skin and rosy cheeks and carefully painted lips the color of blood, her long, coal black hair fluttering around her shoulders despite the lack of breeze.  Perhaps the most distinct thing about her is what she’s wearing: an immaculate dress, the top half patterned with intricate lacework, the bottom layered with soft, flowing ruffles, and above all, spotlessly _white._

She alternates between wringing her hands and clutching at her chest and raising her arms to the heavens, all the while wailing in agony and sobbing strings of words that Nicole can’t make out from this distance.  As the arc of the woman’s pacing brings her nearer, Nicole and Waverly share a look before letting go of each other’s hands, Nicole dropping into her Weaver stance, ready with her Sky Hawk, and Waverly raising her stick with a look of determination on her face.

The woman is only a few feet away from them now, still cutting an anxious path back and forth through the forlorn desert, but she hasn’t made any move to indicate that she has even noticed they’re standing there.  She’s speaking loud enough for Nicole to hear the words now, but she still doesn’t understand them.

_“¿Dónde está el?  ¿A dónde se fue el?”_

“What’s she saying?” Nicole asks out of the corner of her mouth, more than willing to bet that Waverly can understand the woman, whatever language she might be speaking.  Spanish, she thinks.  Maybe.

Waverly frowns, lowering her stick slightly as she struggles to pick out the intermittent words between the constant wailing.

“It seems like she’s saying the same things over and over.  ‘Where is he?’ and ‘Where did he go?’ but there’s...  Hang on.”

She lowers her stick further and takes a step forward, trying to concentrate, and Nicole is immediately at her side, shifting her position so that her body is subtly shielding Waverly.

_“Él estará aquí.”_

“He will be here.”  Waverly looks up at Nicole.  “Do you think there’s someone else out here with her?”

_“Él viene.”_

Nicole opens her mouth to say something, but then Waverly is squeezing her arm and raising her stick again.

“What?  What is it, Wave?”

 _“He is coming,”_ Waverly whispers, her entire body tense as it presses harder into Nicole’s back.

“Great,” Nicole mutters.  “What does _that_ mean?”  She swings her revolver around, completing a three hundred and sixty degree sweep of the open landscape around them.  There’s no sign of anything else for miles in any direction, with the exception of their little camp on the horizon behind them.  She instinctually places herself between Waverly and the woman again.  “Can you try to talk to her?”

“Yeah,” Waverly says, brow furrowed as she notes that the woman seems completely unfazed by their presence.  “I can _try.”_

She lowers her stick again and motions for Nicole to do the same thing with her gun.  It goes against everything Nicole’s gut is telling her, but the woman appears to be unarmed, and if Waverly thinks it might help get through to her, Nicole is willing to try.  She drops the barrel to point at the ground in front of them, but stays in her ready stance with her finger pressing tightly against the trigger guard.

 _“¿Cómo te llamas?”_ Waverly asks, speaking clearly and loud enough to be heard over the wailing.  The woman doesn’t even look at her.  _“¿Estás herido?”_

_“¿Dónde está el?  Él estará aquí.”_

“Okay, I know you asked her name.  What else?”

“If she was hurt.”

“Did she answer you?”

“No.”  Waverly shakes her head, frustrated.  “Just more of the same.  _Where is he?  He’ll be here.”_

“Maybe she doesn’t understand Spanish?” Nicole asks with a shrug.

“She’s _speaking_ Spanish, Nicole,” Waverly glares at her.

 _“Sorry,”_ Nicole says a little defensively, and then her shoulders drop.  “I’m just feeling a little useless here, okay?”

“I’m sorry, baby.  I’m sorry.”  Waverly lays her free hand against the small of Nicole’s back.  “I’m just not sure what to do right now.”

“Maybe try a few other languages?”  Waverly raises an eyebrow at her and Nicole shrugs again.  “It can’t hurt, can it?”

“I…  I guess not.”  Waverly chews her lip for a moment and then turns back to the woman, still wringing her hands.  She’s close enough now for them to see the tears streaking down her face.  _“Wie sind Sie hierhergekommen?”_ Waverly tries.  _“Nach wem suchen Sie?”_

_“¿A dónde se fue el?”_

“That was…  German?”

“Yeah.  How did she get here and who is she looking for.”

“Any luck?”

 _“Where did he go?”_ Waverly deadpans.

“…Right.”

 _“Avez-vous besoin d'aide?”_ Waverly tries again after a minute.

“Hey, I know that one!” Nicole says, her face lighting up.  “French.  You asked if she needed help.”

“That’s right.  I did,” Waverly agrees, sounding a bit proud.  “How did you…?”

“I’m a cop in Canada, Wave,” she grins.  “We learn a few emergency and law enforcement phrases, just in case.  Like a lot of the cops here have to do with Spanish.”

“Of course.  That’s really smart.”  Waverly smiles and her hand flexes against the small of Nicole’s back before she turns back to the woman with a sigh.  _“Sei da sola?”_ she finally asks, sounding almost skeptical.

_“Él viene.  Él viene.  Él viene.”_

“I don’t…” Nicole frowns.  “I don’t… even have a guess on that one.”

“Italian,” Waverly answers, huffing out a laugh.  “I asked her if she was here alone, but no dice, of course.  Just more insisting that _he is coming.”_

“You speak Italian, too?” Nicole asks, clearly in awe.

“Yeah.  Wynonna had a thing for Raoul Bova when she was a teenager,” she says, rolling her eyes.  “I thought…”  She shrugs sheepishly, a shadow of something flashing across her face.  “I thought it might impress her,” she mumbles.

“Well, it impresses _me,”_ Nicole says genuinely.  She beams at Waverly until her brow furrows a moment later.  “But who’s Raoul Bova?” she asks, squinting as she tries to recall the name.  “Wait a minute,” she blurts out, her eyes going wide.  “Isn’t he the guy from _Under the Tuscan Sun?”_

 _“Yes,”_ Waverly says, barely holding back a giggle.  Nicole gets a positively devilish look on her face and Waverly immediately cuts her off.  “If you say _anything_ to her about it, I swear to god she’ll _kill_ you, Nicole.  She’ll do it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Nicole pouts.

_“¿Dónde está el?  ¿Dónde está el?”_

They both turn back to the woman who is now standing right in front of them, and Waverly waves her arms wildly, stick and all.

“WHO IS _HE?”_ she shouts, causing Nicole to flinch.

Waverly reaches out, intending to lay a hand on the woman’s shoulder.  To try and shake her out of her stupor.  To try and get her to acknowledge them in any way. 

But instead, all she comes up with is a fistful of air.

The woman in the white dress, with the long black hair and the sorrowful wails, just shimmered out of view like the white puffs of their breath in the desert air right before their eyes.

“What the _fuck,”_ they both breathe in unison.

Nicole drops her framing hand from her grip on the Sky Hawk and immediately grabs Waverly’s.  Waverly remains frozen, staring at the place where the woman had been standing just seconds ago.

“What was that you were saying about hallucinations?” Nicole whispers.

“That’s not funny, Nicole,” Waverly snaps.  She pulls her hand free and spins to face her girlfriend.

“I wasn’t joking, Waverly,” Nicole returns, agitated.  “She just disappeared.  Right in front of us.  Your hand went right through her.”

“No,” Waverly sighs, rubbing at her temple.  “It couldn’t have been that.  There’s no way we would have both had the exact same visual and auditory hallucination at the exact same time.”

“Then what?” Nicole asks, tentatively holding her hand back out.  Waverly takes it again without hesitation.

“I don’t know.  There’s something…”  Waverly shakes her head, almost like she’s trying to clear it.

“Maybe she was…  like…  out of phase with us,” Nicole suggests and Waverly’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead.

 _“Now_ who’s been watching too many cheesy, made-for-TV sci-fi movies?” Waverly asks with a dramatically pointed look.

“Oh, god…” Nicole groans.  “Look.  You get _mad_ at me when I don’t pay attention to them, baby,” she whines in her defense.  Waverly just pokes her in the ribs with the stick.  Nicole wraps her free arm around Waverly’s shoulders, pulling her close, the adrenaline still coursing between them.  “I know it sounded stupid, but I was actually kind of serious.”

“What do you mean?” Waverly asks, tilting her face up to look up at Nicole while her arms tighten around her waist.

“Well…  like…  Okay.  I mean, you know how we’re stuck in this…” she waves her gun hand in front of them, _“whatever_ this is?  Pocket dimension or whatever?”  Waverly nods and Nicole continues.  “Well.  What if she is, too?”

“But…” Waverly chews on her lip.

“No, I mean,” Nicole interrupts, shaking her head.  “What if she is also trapped in one, but it’s not the same one as ours?  Like.  What if they’re out of sync?  And they maybe sort of overlapped for a minute, and that’s why we could see her, but then she phased back out again?”

“Okay, now I _know_ you’ve been watching Syfy without me.  What movie was that?  It sounds like one I’d definitely like.”

Nicole’s shoulders sag and her face falls.  She moves to drop her arm from Waverly’s shoulders with a mumbled _never mind._

“No, baby.  I’m sorry,” Waverly hurries to say, refusing to let go.  “That’s clever.  _Really_ clever, actually.”

“But…?”

“There’s just…”  Waverly groans, frustrated.  “There’s _something._   And I just can’t _quite_ seem to put my finger on it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Nicole sighs.  “It was a dumb idea anyway.  I mean, we’ve already seen a fucking _spectral horse._   Why would we assume this lady in the white dress was any different?”

“Oh, my _god!”_ Waverly yells, shoving away from Nicole suddenly.  “Nicole, you’re a mother-fudging _genius!”_

Nicole tucks the revolver back into the waistband of her jeans and folds her arms across her chest.  “Okay.  I get it already.  You don’t have to keep making fun of me, Waverly.”

“I’m not!” Waverly squeals, clapping loudly.  “That’s it!  That’s what I was missing!”

“I don’t—”

“C’mon,” Waverly says, grabbing Nicole’s hand and dragging her back the way they came.  “Take me back to the camp.  Hurry!”

“What the…”

“There’s something very important I need to do.”

 

* * *

 

“Waverly…”

“Shhhh.”

“But, what…”

“I know it’s in here somewhere…”

“Waverly.  What is happening right now?”

“I can’t find…”

With that, Waverly picks up her entire pack and turns the whole thing upside down, shaking it violently.  Nicole practically has a heart attack as she watches the remainder of her perfectly packed supplies come tumbling out in a heap onto the blanket Waverly had spread out beneath them.

“I thought you said you didn’t take any of my things out of here,” Waverly pouts and looks up at Nicole, disappointed.

“I didn’t,” Nicole says, kneeling down next to Waverly on the blanket.

“But…”  Waverly points at the pile of her belongings.

“Waverly, I swear,” Nicole insists.  “I didn’t take anything you packed out of your bag.  All I did was rearrange things a little to make room for the extra stuff.”  She tilts Waverly’s chin up until they’re looking in each other’s eyes.  “I _promise.”_

“Okay.”  Waverly’s shoulders drop and she pouts for a moment.  “Okay.  It’s just…  I _know_ I put them in there…”

“What, babe?” Nicole asks, still holding Waverly’s chin in her hands.  “What are you looking for?  Maybe I can help.”

Waverly closes her eyes, scrunching up her face and chewing on her lip.  Nicole is just about to lean down and kiss her on the nose when she sees the exact moment Waverly’s light bulb goes on.

“I put them in the other pocket!”  She scrambles away from Nicole so quickly it knocks her back on her ass.  She watches as Waverly crawls across to her crumpled pack where it lies discarded on the other side of the blanket.  “I didn’t want the corners to dig into my back, so I put them in the other pocket.”

“The…  the what?”

She flips her pack over, her sudden burst of energy causing her fingers to fumble with the zipper of the largest outer pocket.  When she finally manages to yank it open, she pulls out two…

 _“Books?”_  Nicole snorts and quirks an eyebrow.  “You brought the BBD research library with you?  On our _camping trip?”_  Waverly glares at her.  “A bit of _light reading_ there, Hermione?”  Waverly throws one of them at her.  She catches it easily, but still allows herself to fall over backward, shaking with laughter.

“Shut _up,_ sasshole,” Waverly scolds, crawling back across the blanket to swat Nicole with the other book.

Nicole continues to laugh, pulling a surprised Waverly on top of her and then rolling them over on the blanket until she’s looking down at her.  Waverly squirms beneath her, but Nicole just kisses her until she goes still.

“I didn’t see those in there when I was packing your extra emergency supplies,” Nicole says, still chuckling a little.  “Where did you find…”  She pauses, holding up the book closest to them, and starts laughing again.  “Really…?  _Frommer’s Guide to the Pacific Coast Highway in 1 Week?”_

Waverly wriggles until she can pull one of her arms free, snatching the book away from Nicole and clutching it to her chest.  The adorable pouty face she makes earns her another kiss.

“I got them last week, from one of the little touristy places along the boardwalk by our hotel.”  Nicole tilts her head to the side, trying to remember.  “It was the day I didn’t feel like going on our oceanside run with you.  I just chilled on the beach for a while and wandered up and down the row of shops.”

“And so what does Mr. Fommer have to say about _Creepy Desert Groundhog’s Day?”_

Waverly tries to shove Nicole off of her, but she just settles her weight a little heavier with a grin.  Rolling her eyes, Waverly reaches around blindly until she finds the other book that she had thrown at Nicole before.  She holds it up just inches from Nicole’s face, causing her eyes to cross. 

 _“This_ is what I was looking for,” she says triumphantly. 

Nicole finally rolls off to the side so she can see what Waverly is trying to show her.  She plucks the book out of Waverly’s hands, and Waverly props herself up on her elbow next to Nicole while she studies the cover.

 _“Local Legends and Lore:  Tales of the American Southwest._   You bought…”  She turns to Waverly, her eyes crinkling and her dimple on display.  “You bought a history book?  For our vacation?”

Waverly’s face flushes with heat despite the chill in the air.  She lets herself fall back until she’s looking up at the muted sky.

“Yes,” she admits quietly.

“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” Nicole asks softly.  When Waverly frowns and looks away, Nicole leans over and places a kiss on her rosy red cheek.  “I do.  I love you, Waverly Earp.”  She hands the book back to Waverly and sits up, crossing her legs like a child sitting around a campfire.  “So tell me.  What did you learn about what’s happening to us?” she asks, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands, watching Waverly with rapt attention.

She finally turns back to face Nicole, skeptical.  But Nicole just smiles encouragingly, waiting patiently to hear Waverly’s theory.  Whatever it is, it surely has to be better than what she came up with.  Waverly had been right.  It was worthy of some B-movie that played in the dark of the night, fodder for the insomniacs and underappreciated people that kept the world turning while stuck on the graveyard shift.

“Well…” Waverly starts, pushing up until she’s sitting across from Nicole, mirroring her position.  She runs a finger reverently along the spine of the book and draws a deep breath, looking up at Nicole.  “Okay.  So there’s this one legend.  Or…  actually, two?  Maybe?  I don’t know.  But I think that this one…  Or, wait.  Maybe it’s the other.  I mean.  What if they…  _Oh._   Oh, it might be—”

“Waverly.”  Nicole reaches out and lays a hand on Waverly’s knee, cutting off the jumbled ramble.  “Slow down, baby.  Start from the beginning.”

“Right.”  Waverly shakes her head.  “Right, sorry.  There’s this one story, but now I’m thinking that it might be both of them, and that maybe they’re connected, and if they are, then this might be bigger than we thought, and—”

“Waverly.”

“Look, there’s just so much, and…” Waverly is absentmindedly stroking the glossy cover. “And I think maybe we might have…  But, like that would be crazy, and—”

“Okay.  Time out,” Nicole says, taking the book out of Waverly’s hands and setting it on the blanket next to them.

“Nicole…”

“No, listen,” she says, taking Waverly’s hands in her own.  “Listen.  I’m hitting the pause button.”  She squeezes gently when Waverly starts to open her mouth, and she ends up just closing it again.  “We didn’t get much sleep.  And we got startled awake, directly into an intense situation.  We’re running on empty, baby, and I think we need to pause for a minute.”

“What do you mean?” Waverly asks, scooting a little closer until their knees are touching.

“What I mean is…”  Nicole lets go of one of Waverly’s hands and rummages through the pile of supplies still heaped in the middle of the blanket.  She pulls out the roll of toilet paper and sets it in Waverly’s empty hand.  “You should go and make use of the _facilities,_ and I’ll repack your bag while you’re busy.  And then you can get our trail snacks out while I go.  And then we’ll sit here and eat something together while you tell me what you’ve figured out.”

Waverly starts to protest, but Nicole just leans forward to kiss her before she can.  After a moment, she pulls back and while Waverly fidgets with the end of the roll, Nicole slides her hatchet out of the polymer sheath on her belt.  Waverly’s eyes go wide when Nicole places it in her other hand.

“No, no,” Nicole says quickly.  “I don’t think it will be dangerous over there or anything.”  Waverly looks at her with confusion and the corners of Nicole’s mouth twitch at the innocence.  “You’ll need it if, uh…  Well.  You use the pick end to dig a little hole.  In case you need to…  Uh… you know.”

 _“Nicole!”_ Waverly drops the roll of toilet paper to shove at her shoulder.

“Hey!  I’m not trying to be…”  Nicole shakes her head with a sigh.  “It’s just a part of camping, Wave.  And it’s only you and me, anyway.  There’s no one else out here to give a shit.”

Waverly starts to pick up the roll again, but after a few seconds, she makes a strangled noise in her throat and Nicole cackles.

“Nicole.  Oh, my _god.”_   Waverly shoves at her shoulder again, choking with laughter.  “You’re worse than Wynonna.”

“But I made you laugh, didn’t I?” she asks, leaning in to kiss Waverly’s cheek.  “Now.  In all seriousness.  Go.  Take care of yourself, baby.  I’m just going to sort this stuff out and pack it back up, so don’t feel like you have to rush, okay?  I’ll be right here.”

“Okay,” Waverly mumbles, climbing to her feet, careful not to whack either of them with the hatchet on the way up.  She makes it about ten feet before Nicole calls out after her.

“Hey.  I love you and stuff.”

“I _guess_ I love you, too,” Waverly mutters back, rolling her eyes, but the accompanying grin takes the sting out of it, and then she’s trudging off to the designated cluster of sagebrush.

Nicole makes quick work of organizing Waverly’s things, fitting them all neatly back into the pack.  She leaves the Tupperware container with the rations and the bottle of hand sanitizer resting in the entrance to the tent and leans Waverly’s bag against the large rock across from it.

Waverly still isn’t back yet, so she grabs her own pack and fishes out her rations, stacking them with the others before digging deep and pulling out two bottles.  She rests her pack next to Waverly’s and then shakes out the blanket before folding it in half and spreading it out at the foot of the rock, one edge tucked under the packs and the bottles hidden beneath them.

She feels a warmth blooming in her chest when Waverly comes wandering sheepishly back into the camp, and Nicole wonders for the hundredth time since being forcibly dragged out of her slumber how she got so lucky in this life, demons and curses and desert ghost stories be damned.  They share a kiss and Nicole takes the bathroom supplies from Waverly before missioning over to the sagebrush to take care of her own business.

By the time she gets back to the camp, Waverly has laid out a package of jerky, a granola bar, and a series of Ziploc bags – one with trial mix, one with dried apples, and one with banana chips – for each of them.  Nicole uses the hand sanitizer and then packs it and the toilet paper away before crawling onto the blanket and settling with her back against the packs.  She spreads her legs and opens her arms and Waverly gives her a shy smile before scooting in next to her, leaning back against Nicole’s chest and resting her arms on Nicole’s knees.

“How are you feeling, baby?” Nicole asks as Waverly begins to open their baggies of food.

“A little better,” Waverly admits as she arranges everything close enough that they can both reach.  “Thank you,” she whispers.

Nicole just kisses her temple and wraps her arms around Waverly’s shoulders, taking a minute to hold her close in the eerie stillness.

“Oh…” Waverly says suddenly, twisting around to look at Nicole.  “I forgot to get one of the canteens out before you got all comfortable back there.  I’m sorry,” she says, scrunching up her face.

Grinning, Nicole gives her a little squeeze before unwinding her arms.  She reaches behind her back, where she had stashed the two bottles, and pulls them out to show Waverly.

“That’s okay.  I had a surprise for you, anyway,” she says, pleased.

“You’ve been hiding Gatorade all this time?” Waverly asks, her face lighting up.

“Mhm.  Fruit punch for you, and orange for me,” she says, handing Waverly one of the bottles.  “I only have one bottle of each,” she adds apologetically.  “The rest of them are in the cooler with the other food in the Jeep.  We were only supposed to be hiking for one afternoon at a time and then returning to campsite each night in between.”

“That’s okay,” Waverly says, happily cracking the seal on her lid.

“We have plenty of spring water to last us for a while, but now seemed like a good time for this treat.  I think we could both use it,” she says with a shrug, twisting the cap off of her own bottle.

They take a moment to enjoy their drinks and then begin to nibble on the various snacks Waverly had set out for them.  After a few minutes, Nicole reaches around to grab the books Waverly had stacked at the edge of the blanket while she was busy.

“So,” Nicole says around a piece of jerky, handing the history book to Waverly.  “Tell me about the folklore surrounding this place.  What are we up against?”

“Well…” Waverly says, flipping through the first few pages of the book.  She takes a deep, shaky breath and Nicole splays one hand over her abdomen, solid and firm, while she continues to pick through the bag of trail mix balanced on Waverly’s thigh.  “I didn’t realize it at first.  Wasn’t putting it together.  Not until you mentioned the spectral horse and the fact that the woman might also have been a ghost together at the same time.  And that’s when it clicked.  One of the legends I had read about in here.”

Nicole feeds Waverly a piece of the Thai Peanut vegan jerky she’d selected for herself and kisses behind her ear.  She hands her the bottle of fruit punch Gatorade and lets her hand idly rub calming circles against Waverly’s stomach.

“Take your time, baby.  Just tell me the story and then we can work through what it might mean together.”

“Okay,” Waverly breathes, closing her eyes and letting her head drop back against Nicole’s shoulder for a moment while she gathers her thoughts.  Nicole just holds her patiently, waiting for her to begin.  “In the 1800s, a stagecoach line used to run from Mexico all the way up to the gold-rush boomtowns up near San Francisco.  One of the major stops, known as the Vallecito Station, was located somewhere in this general area.  Probably not too far from where we were on California State Route 1.”

She pauses long enough for Nicole to feed her a couple bites of the dried fruit while she finds the page she’s looking for in the book.

“There’s a tale of a woman who came to Vallecito on a stagecoach in the 1860s.  Her fiancé was a U.S. Marshal, away on duty, but he was to meet her at the station on the next available coach so that they could finally be wed.  Even though she was weary from her journey, she waited at the station for the next coach to arrive.  But her fiancé wasn’t on it.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Nicole says, sucking on a piece of dried apple.

“No,” Waverly shakes her head.  “Definitely not.  She refused to leave the station, pacing the platform in her wedding dress for days and days.  She fell ill due to malnutrition and lack of water and exposure to the desert elements, but still refused to leave without him.  The townsfolk tried their best to save her, but it was no use, and she soon perished.  The Marshal never arrived to claim his bride, and she was eventually buried, still wearing her white gown, in an unmarked grave in Camp Santos, a few hundred yards from Vallecito Station.”

Waverly’s fingers trace absentmindedly over the words on the page while she looks up at Nicole, who nods and smiles at her.  She rests her chin on Waverly’s shoulder, encouraging her to continue.

“So, the legend says that the _Lady in White_ – that’s what the locals call her – is a ghostly woman seen on moonless nights, wandering the worn earth where the station once stood.  She mourns her missing lover, wailing for his loss, and still awaits the arrival of the stagecoach that will bring him back to her.”

“Hmmm…” Nicole hums against Waverly’s cheek.  “Well, that certainly sounds a lot like what we saw.  I mean, she didn’t even seem to notice we were there.”

“Yeah.  But…” Waverly frowns and turns her face into Nicole’s neck.  “Even if it is her.  The legend didn’t say anything about randomly getting stuck in a desert loop.”

“I know, baby,” Nicole whispers, wrapping both arms around her and holding her a little closer.  For a minute, they’re content just to breathe each other in, finding a moment of solace from the confusion and the worry and the dread.

“You said earlier that you thought there might be more going on?” Nicole prompts gently after a while, finally breaking the silence.  “Does your book have something else to say?’

“I’m not sure,” Waverly admits and Nicole loosens her hold so that she can twist around to face forward again.  “I didn’t have time to read the whole thing yet.  But I don’t think the 8-foot-tall skeleton that shambles through the deserts of Arizona with a lantern glowing through its ribcage or the three apparitions that rise from the Yaqui Well on the full moon to join hands and cavort around the well while they sing about discovering gold really apply to this situation.”

“No.”  Despite their circumstances, Nicole can’t help but snort.  “No, I see how that might not be relevant.”  Waverly elbows her playfully in the ribs and Nicole dutifully sobers up.  She feeds Waverly a couple of banana chips and hands her the bottle of Gatorade again.  “But you did say that something clicked when I mentioned the woman and the horse together?”

“Right,” Waverly agrees, straightening up again.  “I was thinking I remembered seeing a chapter about some supposedly long lost desert treasure…” she mumbles, checking the Table of Contents and then thumbing through the pages.

“Why did a ghost horse make you think of buried treasure?” Nicole asks, tilting her head to the side in confusion.

“Because,” Waverly says triumphantly, reaching her destination.  “Look at the picture on the title page for the chapter.

 _“Oh…”_ Nicole breathes.  She leans in, squinting over Waverly’s shoulder to get a better look.  There, taking up the entire page, is a beautiful illustration, detailed and shaded, of a faintly glowing horse with no rider, standing in a sea of sand.

“I think…”  Waverly looks back over her shoulder at Nicole, excitement dancing in her eyes.  “Now might be a good time to skip ahead in the book and read this chapter.”

“I’m all ears, Waverly Earp,” Nicole grins, grabbing another piece of jerky for herself and taking a quick drink before settling back comfortably against the packs again.

“Okay,” Waverly says, hunching over the book to begin story time.  She swipes furiously at her hair that keeps falling in her face.

“Here, baby,” Nicole says, urging Waverly to raise her knees and prop the book on them so she can lean back against Nicole’s chest.  “Let me take care of that for you while you read.”

“Don’t worry about it, Nic.  I don’t have a brush with me or anything.”

“I don’t need one,” Nicole says, beginning to comb her fingers carefully through Waverly’s hair.  Waverly moans softly and then immediately claps her hand over her mouth.

“Sorry,” she squeaks, embarrassed.  “That just feels really good.  I didn’t realize how much of a headache I have right now.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to take my time,” Nicole says, gently massaging Waverly’s scalp with each pass through her tangled hair.  Waverly moans again, on purpose this time.  “I’ll handle this.  All you have to do is read to me.”

“Okay,” Waverly whispers after a minute.  “Okay.”

She flips the page and begins skimming over the words quickly, looking for the important information while Nicole continues to tame her wild mane.

“It looks like the spectral horse is supposed to be the key to the treasure,” Waverly says, hitting the highlights.  “There was a botched hold-up of a stagecoach carrying a large amount of gold coins.  The driver killed a couple of the bandits before the other two shot him and got away.  The U.S. Marshals went looking for them – one or two of them even got lost to the desert – but it says the coach and the bandits were never seen again.  At least not in the land of the living.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”  Nicole’s hands pause briefly, and Waverly subtly leans her head back into them, urging Nicole to continue what she’s been doing.

“There’s said to be a ghostly stagecoach – they call it the Phantom Stage – that is occasionally seen blazing across the desert, pulled by a team of four mules.  It supposedly leaves behind rut marks in the dust from its wheels, as well as tracks from the mules.  Oh…”  Waverly squeezes Nicole’s knee.  “That sounds familiar.”

“But what does that have to do with Ghostrider?” Nicole asks, still running her fingers through Waverly’s hair, beginning to divide it into sections now.  “Because I know it was leaving hoof marks for us to follow, but if that was a _mule,_ then I’m a _werewolf.”_

“Well…” Waverly purrs, reaching behind her until she finds Nicole’s cheek, and runs her thumb over Nicole’s bottom lip.  “I _do_ know how to make you howl at the moon…”

 _“Waverly…”_ Nicole whines.

“Sorry,” Waverly giggles.  “Sorry.  Hang on.”  She scans a couple of paragraphs, turns the page, and glances at a few more.  “Alright.  So, the theory is that the two remaining bandits turned on one another, each fatally shooting the other.  Apparently one of their horses got spooked by the gunfire and now runs free, stampeding out of the desert to chase away anyone that gets too close to the buried treasure.”

“It wasn’t exactly chasing us away, Wave.”

“Yeah, that was…  I mean, it was practically begging us to follow it.”

“Wait…” Nicole says, her face scrunched up in concentration while she works on Waverly’s hair.  “If the two bandits killed each other, then who is supposed to be driving the Phantom Stage?”

“Ummm…”  Waverly runs her finger down the page again, tapping it twice when she finds what she’s looking for.  “Here.  It says it’s driven by ‘a mysterious shadowy figure, twisted and hunched over.’  Well, that’s…  exciting.”  Her fingers tighten around Nicole’s knee.  “Do you think the horse is leading us into a trap?  To whatever this ‘shadowy figure’ is?”

“I kinda think this entire place is a trap, baby.”  She feels Waverly stiffen in front of her, and she keeps her fingers working at their task, but squeezes her legs together slightly around Waverly’s torso and softens her voice.  “I just mean I think we were already in it by the time you spotted the repeating mile marker.  We’re already in it, and there’s not much we can do about that now.  The horse may be leading us to something worse, but…  I don’t really see how we have any choice but to follow it.  We can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

“Yeah…” Waverly mumbles.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

She wraps her arms around Nicole’s legs, keeping them tight against her body while Nicole continues to work in silence.  They’re quiet for several minutes, the harsh reality of their circumstances having smacked them in the faces once again.

“Done,” Nicole finally says, tapping Waverly on the shoulder and pulling her out of her thoughts.  “Can I have that tie on your wrist?”

Waverly looks confused for a second, but pulls the rubber band off and hands it to Nicole over her shoulder.  Nicole snaps it into place and kisses Waverly on the cheek before leaning back against the packs and taking a long pull of her orange Gatorade.

 _“Oh…”_ Waverly breathes when she reaches back to pat gently at her head.  She twists around to face Nicole fully, her eyes soft and her face brimming with love.  For a brief moment, Nicole is standing in the doorway of Shorty’s again, hat in her hands and pick-up line on her tongue, watching Waverly light up the entire bar with her awestricken smile, glowing slightly in the soft rays of the sun filtering in through the dusty windows.  It’s enough to stop her heart in her chest.  “You braided it.  Like you used to do yours,” she says, her voice full of wonder.

“Yeah,” Nicole says dumbly, still trying to catch her breath after the memory.  “I still remember how.”  She shrugs a little shyly, reaching out to touch one of the wisps lying across Waverly’s forehead.  “I’m sorry it’s not very good.  I did the best I could with just my fingers.  But I thought you might like to have it out of your face for a while.”

“It’s perfect,” Waverly says, shaking her head as she runs her hand over the braid again.  “Thank you,” she murmurs and leans forward, pressing her lips gently to Nicole’s.

The kiss is gentle at first – chaste almost – until the desperation of their situation bleeds its way in, causing them to draw from each other, seeking strength and surety and solace.  Waverly shifts so that she’s straddling Nicole’s hips instead of nestled between them and Nicole lets her hands slip into the back pockets of Waverly’s jeans, curling her fingers and pulling her closer.

Waverly slides her hands up Nicole’s arms and over her shoulders and along her neck until she can thread her fingers into Nicole’s hair, tilting her head back for a better angle before slipping her tongue into Nicole’s mouth.  Nicole can taste the salt from her jerky.  The sweet from the fruity drink.  The tart from the apple slices.  It mixes with the flavors of her own snacks and bursts on her tongue as she kisses back hungrily, starving for what Waverly is offering.

She knows what this is. 

She knows they _both_ do. 

They’ve shared this same kiss a hundred times before.  At the Solstice party, before going their separate ways, both trying to save the town.  On the floor of the station, before sending Waverly off to do battle against her traitorous sister.  Outside Shorty’s, before splitting up for Waverly to play midwife and Nicole to cement the last pieces of their Earplet Escape Plan.  In the back of Dolls’s SUV, before storming into the den of cultists.  Before hunting down a pack of werewolves, before facing down a voodoo witch, before standing against an Old God. 

And on and on and on.

They never say it.  Never allow themselves to even _think_ it.  But still their bodies know what to do, their souls crying out for each other in the darkest hour, hearts beating in time as they march into battle.  It’s a _Last Kiss,_ and they both know it.  But rather than acknowledge it, they choose instead to just _feel_ it.  To live in it.  To fill the cracks that the fear has chipped into their armor with each other.  With their _desire._   With their _need._   With their _love._

Because they don’t say _goodbye._  

They say _I love_ _you._

And that’s what makes them who they are.

Waverly finally pulls away, chest heaving, and they rest their foreheads together, breathing the same air for a few long moments.  Eventually, she shifts her body again, turning to the side so that she’s draped across Nicole’s lap with her head leaning against her shoulder.

“So.  We’re not just going to sit here and do nothing,” she says, playing with Nicole’s fingers.  “What’s the plan?”

“Well…”  Nicole chews on her lip for a moment, still tasting Waverly as she considers their options.  “Okay, what are the things we know for sure?”

“Mmmm…”  Waverly begins to tick on her fingers.  “The Lady in White died while waiting for her fiancé’s stagecoach, and we are pretty sure we ran into her a while ago.”  Nicole nods.  “And there is potentially a Phantom Stage running around out here, thanks to a botched robbery, that may or may not have produced the spectral horse that may or may not be luring us to our death.”

“…Right.”

“That’s…”  Waverly scrunches up her face.  “That’s it.  That’s all we _think_ we know right now.”

“Hmm…”  Nicole absentmindedly traces patterns on Waverly’s thigh.  “So we have a missing stagecoach.  And…  _another_ missing stagecoach?”  Waverly looks up at Nicole, eyes wide.  “Waverly…  Where was the robbed stagecoach supposed to be taking all of that gold?  Was it on its way to Valhalla Station?”

Waverly snorts.  _“Vallecito._   Vallecito Station.”

“That’s what I said,” Nicole says matter-of-factly.  Waverly rolls her eyes, but reaches for the nearby book. 

“I’m on it,” she says, flipping back to correct chapter.  _“Nicole,”_ she breathes.  “You _are_ a genius.”  She reaches up and kisses Nicole on the cheek.

“Went missing on its way to Valhalla Station?”

“Ni—” Waverly starts to argue, but then she sees Nicole wink at her with a cheeky grin, and she scoffs while poking her in the ribs.  “You spend way too much time with Wynonna.”

“Don’t lie,” she says, poking Waverly back.  “You love that we’re best friends and you know it.”

“Lies,” Waverly insists, folding her arms.  “Pure lies.”

“So,” Nicole says, tilting up the book in Waverly’s hands so she can see the picture better.  “Lady in White arrives at the station and waits for her fiancé to show up.  But his coach gets robbed and goes missing and she dies waiting for him.”

“So it would seem,” Waverly says, leaning her head back against Nicole’s shoulder again while she thinks.  “But…  If the stagecoach was carrying all of that gold, it shouldn’t have also been carrying passengers.  What happened to her fiancé?  Was he the driver?  Was he…  one of the bandits?”

“Wait.”  Nicole sits up so quickly Waverly slides partially off of her lap.  “Wait.  Didn’t you say he was a U.S. Marshal?”

“T-that’s right,” Waverly gasps.  “I did.  Do you think he was killed trying to stop the hold-up?”

“He could have been.”  Nicole pauses for a moment, narrowing her eyes.  “Or.  He could have been in on it.  Maybe an inside man?”

“God.  That’s true.”  Waverly shakes her head.  “He might have been one of the ones the driver was able to kill.  And no one would have informed his waiting bride when they found the bodies, because if he was disguised as a bandit, they probably had no idea who he was.”

“The other option is that he was one of the bandits that got away.”

“Oh, my god.”  Waverly scoots around so that she’s facing Nicole again.  “You think he just left her there and took off?”

“Well,” Nicole shrugs.  “You did say it was supposed to be a _lot_ of gold.”

“You’re terrible,” Waverly says, shoving at Nicole’s shoulder.

“Hey,” she laughs.  “We’re not talking about _me_ here.  I was just pointing out it was a possibility.”  Waverly folds her arms and pouts dramatically.  “Baby,” Nicole says, leaning in close.  “If I was supposed to be marrying you, there isn’t a Marshal, a bandit, or enough gold in the entire world that could keep me away.”

Waverly glares at her for a moment longer, but she can’t hold it for long, and her grumpy exterior melts away to something softer.  She reaches up to cradle Nicole’s face in her hands, her thumbs stroking over both of her cheeks.

“I love you, Nicole.  I don’t always say it enough.  But, I love you.  I do.”

“I love you, too, Waverly,” Nicole whispers, close enough for her breath to wash over Waverly’s lips.

They kiss again, but this time it’s different.  Soft.  Tender.  It doesn’t last long, but it holds no less emotion than the last time.  Nicole rubs her nose against Waverly’s as she pulls away, and her breath catches when she sees Waverly looking back at her with hearts in her eyes.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter that they are trapped here and cut off from the rest of the world, because she knows that her entire world is sitting right in front of her.

“So, what now?” Waverly finally asks, pulling Nicole out of her trance.

“Now…” Nicole says, crawling onto her knees and then pushing up to her feet.  She extends a hand and hauls Waverly up next to her.  “We break camp.  And we prepare to track down a rogue stagecoach.”

“You really think the spectral horse or the Phantom Stage or whatever has something to do with why we’re trapped here?”

“I have no idea, honestly,” Nicole admits with a shrug.  “But right now, it’s the only thing we have to go on.  And who knows,” she adds, nudging Waverly with her elbow.  “Maybe we’ll find a bit of buried treasure while we’re at it.”

Waverly rolls her eyes and shoves playfully at Nicole before stooping to gather up the blanket they’d been using for their makeshift picnic.  Nicole stretches, wincing as her back cracks in protest, evidence of sleeping on the hard ground and wedging herself against the packs for so long just now.

“I wish Doc were here,” Waverly mumbles as she shakes the sand out of the blanket before starting to fold it.

“Tired of my company already?” Nicole pouts.

“No,” Waverly says, rolling her eyes.  “I meant for the tracking.”

Nicole looks at the wide open desert stretching before them and grins back at Waverly.

“There’s only one other thing out here besides us making tracks, and there’s no wind or rain to wash them away.”  She grins at Waverly with a wink.  “I think we’ll probably do alright.”

“Okay, smartass,” Waverly says, tossing the blanket at her face.  “By all means.  Let’s get to tracking.”

“We will, don’t worry.”  Nicole hands the blanket back to Waverly so she can return it to her pack.  “We just have to break the tent down first.  And then whaddaya say?” she asks, throwing her arm around Waverly’s shoulder and pulling her close into her side.  “You up for a little ghost wrangling with me?”

“Baby…” Waverly says, grinning up at her.  “I’m all in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special _thank you_ to:
> 
> \- @piratekane for the Spanish  
>  \- @belikebumblebee for the German  
> \- @kendrene for the Italian and French
> 
>  
> 
> This is the first chapter that really begins to introduce the various different Legends and Lore that I am using for this fic. Please understand that every one of them had to be modified in some way in order to make them viable for the story that I wanted to tell. ((I tried to change them as little as possible, but this is me, acknowledging up front, that I did have to do so.))
> 
> I promised I would direct you to the sources, and that I would explain any changes I had to make, but rather than going into all of that in depth here, I am going to wait until the end of the final chapter, at which point I can address all of the different parts at once.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone that has been reading and commenting so far. I am very excited to hear that so many of you are enjoying my spooky little adventure. I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts on the closing chapters as well, and what you've thought of the final story after it wraps up on Halloween.


	6. Another Haunted Lullabye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Haunted Lullabye" - Dokken

“I wanted to be a pirate for a little while when I grew up.”

“A… pirate.  You wanted to be a _pirate.”_

“Mhm.  I really wanted a pirate flag to hang in my room, but I had to settle for stealing one of my dad’s old Guns N’ Roses t-shirts with the skull on it that I tied to my pee-wee hockey stick.”

“Well, that’s adorable.”

“Shut up,” Nicole grumbles, bumping her shoulder against Waverly’s as they walk.  “I also had a cool sword.”

“Where’d you get a _sword?”_ Waverly asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I made it,” Nicole says with a shrug.  “Found a piece of old PVC pipe in the shed and spray-painted it silver.  And I used hockey grip tape for the handle.”

“How resourceful,” Waverly teases, poking Nicole with one of her sticks.

“Hey.  It worked just fine against Bobby Evans when he was being a stupid bully,” Nicole says with a glint in her eye. “I got grounded for like a month when I put his arm in a sling, but he never bothered me or Hayley again after that.”

“Fair enough,” Waverly says, a little impressed.  “I mean, I whacked Champ Hardy in the balls with a stick one time when I was twelve after he tried to lock Chrissy in a port-a-potty,” she adds, twirling one of her sticks proudly.  “But why a pirate, anyway?”

“Uh, hello…  Have you _seen_ the Pirates of the Caribbean?”

“Oh,” Waverly says, tilting her head to the side, surprised.  “I never took you for a Jack Sparrow fangirl.”

“Eww.”  Nicole scrunches up her face.  “That’s because I wasn’t.”

“Will Turner?”  The corners of Waverly’s mouth twitch.  “He _was_ kind of dreamy.”

 _“Waverly…”_ Nicole groans, rolling her eyes.

“What?”  Waverly frowns and Nicole gives her a pointed look.  “Oh.”  Nicole smirks.  _“Oh…”_ she says again, eyes going a little wider.

“Yeah,” Nicole laughs.  _“Oh.”_

“Right.  So.  Elizabeth Swann.  Guess I should have seen that coming.”  Waverly chews on her lip for a minute.  “So…  you already knew?  Even when you were just a kid?”

“Well…”  Nicole thinks for a minute before answering.  “I don’t really think I knew that’s what it was at the time.  Like…  I didn’t really understand that it was a _crush,_ if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I think so,” Waverly nods.  “She was a badass, and you thought that was why you liked her.”

“Exactly,” Nicole says.  “My friends were all swooning over Jack and Will, but I just kept thinking about how awesome Elizabeth was.”  She grins at Waverly.  “I mean, looking back on it _now…”_ she waggles her eyebrows dramatically and Waverly laughs.  “But back then…” she trails off with a shrug.

“Yeah,” Waverly nods.  “I get that.”

“But, anyway.  I think you’re forgetting the best part about being a pirate,” Nicole says, nudging Waverly again.

“I am?”

 _“Buried treasure,”_ Nicole says in a stage whisper, her eyes dancing.

“Oh,” Waverly says quietly.  “Buried treasure.  Right.”

“I think we’re going about this whole thing the wrong way, Waves,” Nicole continues, not noticing the shift in Waverly’s mood.  “We shouldn’t worry about tracking the horse’s hooves.  We should just be looking for a giant **_X_** on the ground,” she laughs.

“Yeah…” Waverly mumbles, fidgeting with her sticks.

It hadn’t taken long for them to break camp, considering they had no scraps left from food preparation and no trash from cleaning up to dispose of and no fire pit to properly neutralize.  It had simply been a matter of breaking down the tent and returning the pieces to their places in their packs and making sure their food and blankets were loaded back up.

They’d taken the time to arm themselves the best they could under the circumstances, knowing they were most likely marching _into_ danger rather than _away_ from it.  Nicole had checked her Sky Hawk and loaded her pockets with bullets for easier access than the box of ammunition that was in one of the outer pockets of her pack.  She’d used her whetstone to hone her tomahawk’s bit into a fine razor edge.

Waverly had foregone the bulky piece of firewood she’d been wielding before, instead having Nicole chop off two of the more manageable tertiary branches from the Joshua Tree – _before_ sharpening the bit of her hatchet, of course – that she’d carefully stripped the bark from.  They were unbalanced and asymmetrical – they certainly didn’t feel the same in her hands as the set of sleek, Indonesian rattan escrima sticks Nicole and Wynonna and the rest of the BBD gang had pitched in to get for her birthday last year – but she had given them a testing twirl and felt confident in her ability to use them for destruction.

Once Nicole had helped Waverly wiggle into the straps of her giant pack again, and then slipped back into her own, they had set off, following the tracks of the spectral horse into the unknown once more, chasing a horizon that would never come.  They’ve been walking for a couple of hours, discussing the myths and chatting easily.

Until now.

“Captain Haught had some pretty excellent treasure map excursions with her First Mate, Nathan from down the street,” Nicole jokes, carrying on for several more steps before she realizes Waverly isn’t next to her any longer.  “What?  You didn’t go on any piratey adventures when you were a kid?”  She stops and turns, the playful grin immediately falling from her face when she finds Waverly with her shoulders hunched, head hung, and poking at the sand with one of her sticks.  “Wave…?”

“Yeah,” Waverly mutters.  “Something like that.”

“Something like… what?”  Nicole steps back to Waverly’s side, brow furrowed.  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Buried treasure,” Waverly mumbles, continuing to poke at the sand, digging a little hole.

“I was only kidding, Wave,” Nicole says quietly.  “Not everyone has to like pirates.”  She ducks her head until she can see Waverly’s face and gives her a lopsided smile.

It doesn’t work.

“No, it’s not that.”  Nicole waits patiently for her to elaborate and Waverly sighs, knowing she won’t be able to just drop this.  “When I was little…”  She looks up at Nicole.  “Wynonna and Willa were…  well, they did their own thing.  I wasn’t allowed when Willa was around.  So I found my own things to do.”

Nicole tucks the revolver into her waistband so that she can cradle Waverly’s face.  Waverly closes her eyes, turning into Nicole’s touch for a moment.

“That’s, uhh…”  She opens her eyes again, her cheeks going a little red.  “That’s about the time I met Bobo.”

“Oh.”  Anger flares white-hot in Nicole’s chest and her jaw tightens.  She’s worked hard her entire life to keep her volatile temper in check, and there are few things left that can ignite it with a single spark.  Her hatred for their long-dead enemy and what he had put Waverly through is one of them.

“We went on our own little adventures,” Waverly explains with a little shrug.  “We had _fun_ together.  He got me trust him.”

Nicole takes the sticks from Waverly, propping them against her thigh so that she can take Waverly’s hands in her own.  She brushes her thumbs against the backs of her knuckles.

“And then one day, he told me that we could have our own buried treasure.”

“The talisman…” Nicole whispers, squeezing Waverly’s hands gently.

“The talisman,” Waverly nods.  “He said burying our treasure would make it _lucky._   That our family could be happy again.  And that’s all I ever wanted when I was a kid.”  She turns her face away, gazing off into the distance, a single tear slipping down her cheek.  “But all it did was get them killed.”  She turns back to Nicole.  “My buried treasure got my family killed.”

“Oh, Waverly…”  Nicole slides her hands up Waverly’s arms and wraps them around her shoulders, pulling her into a tight hug.  “That wasn’t your fault, baby.”  She drops a kiss to the top of Waverly’s head.  “You were a child.  And he was the _devil,”_ she spits, her voice sharper than the edge on her tomahawk.

Waverly just clings tighter, burying her face in Nicole’s chest.  Nicole rubs soothing circles on her back and rests her cheek against Waverly’s braided hair.  They stay like that, silent, until Waverly’s breathing evens out again and she pulls away, her face red and splotchy, but no longer crying.  Nicole digs in one of the pockets of Waverly’s pack and pulls out a bandana, using it to wipe Waverly’s face and then handing it over so that Waverly can blow her nose.  When she’s done, Nicole stuffs it in the back pocket of her jeans and Waverly leans back into her side.

“So, yeah,” Waverly finally says, her voice still a little hoarse.  “Buried treasure really isn’t my thing.”

“Yeah,” Nicole says, leaning down to kiss her once, soft.  “Well, I’ll tell you what,” she says, grabbing Waverly’s shoulders and holding her firmly at arm’s length, making a very serious face.  “If we find any buried treasure in this horse’s lair…”

“Yes?” Waverly asks expectantly when Nicole releases her shoulders and drops into an exaggerated crouching stance.

“I will give it a _HAH,”_ she says, making a dramatic karate chop motion.  “And a _HI-YAH.”_   Another chop.  “And a _WOO-AH.”_   This time it’s a spinning chop.  _“And then I’ll kick it, sir.”_   Waverly is giggling hysterically by the time she finishes.

“Oh, my _god._   You are such a _dork.”_   Her eyes are crinkled up into little half-moons as she laughs, and the fire in Nicole’s chest mellows into a different kind of warmth.  “Come on, _Bartok,”_ Waverly says, picking her sticks up off the ground with one hand and extending the other until Nicole takes it, lacing their fingers together.  “Let’s go kick that treasure’s ass.”

 

* * *

 

“Waverly!”

 _“What?”_ Waverly coughs around the water she’d been trying to drink before Nicole had nudged her with her elbow.  “What was that for?  You made me spill my water.”

“Look!”  Nicole says, excited, pointing to a spot in the distance.

“I don’t…” Waverly squints in the direction Nicole is pointing after sliding her canteen back into its compartment.  “I don’t see anything.”

“No, you have to...  Here.  Like this,” she says, stepping behind Waverly and taking her hand.  She rests her chin on Waverly’s shoulder and then lines Waverly’s finger up with the spot she’d been looking at before.  “Do you see it now?”

“Nicole.”  Waverly is just about to accuse her girlfriend of imagining things when the words die on her tongue.  _“Oh..._   What is it?” she asks, twisting around in Nicole’s arms. 

“I don’t know,” Nicole admits with a shrug.  There, in the distance, is a tiny speck against the horizon.  Barely visible in the eerie twilight.  But it’s _there._   “But the hoof prints are headed in that direction.  I think we might be getting close to some answers.”

“I _hope_ that’s what we’re getting close to,” Waverly says darkly, gripping her sticks a little tighter.

Nicole nods in response, her revolver at the ready as they proceed cautiously.  They’d been ambling along before at a steady pace, almost as though they were out for a leisurely hike, but they move more slowly now, with purpose, each step measured and deliberate.

After another half an hour, the point they’re moving toward has grown large enough that it is clear they were not imagining it.  A solitary outcropping of jagged rocks, silhouetted against the wide open desert, creepy and ominous and foreboding.

The landscape begins to change around them, the sand giving way to dirt and clay, hard and dry and cracked.  After a short distance, their movements are accompanied by a crunching sound, and Nicole realizes, to her horror, that the terrain is littered with bones, snapping beneath their boots with every step they take. 

They’re tiny at first, the remains of various desert creatures – lizards and rodents and birds – but the closer they get to the massive rocks, the larger the partial skeletons grow, until Waverly gasps when they come across a skull that is undeniably human.

Nicole crouches low to examine it, Waverly squatting next to her as she turns it carefully in her hands.  The surface is rough and porous, dry and scorched like the earth it’s resting upon.

“It’s been here a while,” Nicole says, running her finger over the crown.  “Like, a _long_ time.  And those…” she says, pointing out several deep notches and grooves covering the entire skull.  “Are tooth marks.”

“Something was gnawing on this thing?” Waverly asks, clearly disgusted.  “Please tell me it was a coyote or something.”

“I’m afraid not,” Nicole says, shaking her head.  “I took a course last year on the effects scavengers have on human remains, given that we live in Purgatory, the _‘animal attack’_ capital of the world,” she says sarcastically, rolling her eyes.  “The spacing on the front teeth isn’t right for any typical animal scavenger.”

“So human, then.”

“Well,” Nicole frowns, surveying the horrific scene before them.  “Human _oid,_ at the very least.”

“Great,” Waverly grumbles, pushing back up to her feet.  “We go looking for spectral horses and ghostly bandits, and instead, we stumble into the lair of the Borrego Sasquatch.”

“The…  the _what?”_   Nicole stands up next to her, eyes wide.

“It was another one of the legends,” Waverly says, waving a dismissive hand.

“Did…  Did you just say… _Sasquatch?”_ Nicole asks, subconsciously raising her Sky Hawk into the ready position.  “Are you telling me we’ve been tracking…  _Desert Bigfoot?”_

“No,” Waverly says quickly.  “Well…” she hesitates, chewing on her lip.  _“Maybe?”_ she squeaks, shrugging her shoulders sheepishly.

“You’re…  you’re _serious…”_

“Unfortunately.”  Waverly taps one of her sticks against her shoulder, trying to remember the details.  “It was one of the first legends in the book, so I’ve already read it.  I think it was…  I don’t know.  Mostly just reports of people camping in the Borrego Sink.”  Nicole raises an eyebrow and Waverly clarifies.  “It’s a bunch of dry gulches just outside of Borrego Springs.”

“Okay, and what kind of reports?” Nicole asks.  “Not good, I assume.”

“No,” Waverly shakes her head.  “There have been a lot of people go missing, and then turn up weeks later, mangled.”

“Fantastic,” Nicole says flatly.

“But there are some survivors who say their camps were supposedly attacked by enormous bipedal creatures, covered in white or silver fur, with glowing red eyes,” Waverly explains.  “The stories quickly led to the idea that there was some sort of desert yeti out there eating people.  And so the legend of the Borrego Sasquatch was born.”

“You could have mentioned this before, Waverly,” Nicole points out, her mind still reeling.

“I didn’t think it mattered,” Waverly says, raising her hands in surrender.  “At the time, all we had encountered were ghosts.  And we definitely didn’t know people were getting _eaten,”_ she adds, poking gingerly at the skull with her stick.

“Okay,” Nicole sighs, her shoulders sagging.  “Okay.  You’re right.  I’m sorry.”  She reaches out, and Waverly immediately steps into her side, letting Nicole wrap her arm around her shoulder.  “This is just...  I mean, a _yeti_ …  like…  it’s a _lot.”_   She tips her chin toward the wasteland of skeletons stretching between them and the rocks.  “And all of this is also creepy as fuck,” she adds.

“Fucking _seriously,”_ Waverly breathes, and Nicole raises an eyebrow.  Waverly gives her a very pointed _well…?_ look, and Nicole just shrugs in agreement.  It’s not like she can argue with the sentiment.  She takes a deep breath and tugs Waverly forward.

“Here goes nothing.

 

* * *

 

“Stay close.”

“I can take care of myself, Nicole,” Waverly says a little defensively, twirling her sticks in an elaborate execution to prove her point.

“I know,” Nicole says hastily.  Waverly continues to glare at her.  She reaches out and lays a hand on Waverly’s shoulder, squeezing gently.  “I know you can, baby,” she says softer.  “I’ve seen you do it.  You’ve saved my ass more than once.”

Waverly still looks skeptical, though she doesn’t pull away from Nicole’s hand.

“I just…”  Nicole looks around pointedly and back to Waverly.  “I don’t want you to get...  like...  snatched and dragged away or something.”

“Yeah,” Waverly breathes, lowering her sticks and stepping closer to Nicole.  “I know.”  She pushes up on her toes for a quick kiss and then together they turn, peering into the shadowy opening that splits the cluster of rocks.

The stench is overwhelming.  Rot and decay laced with sulfur.  It burns Nicole’s eyes and turns her stomach, far worse than the odor of decomposition that she’s unfortunately used to by now.  Her eyes struggle to adjust to the inky black void of the crevice, and the silence is chilling, like the entire world is muted around them.

But the next thing Nicole hears makes her blood run cold.

“You should not be here.”

Waverly drops into a crouch, her sticks high and ready, and Nicole steps ever so slightly in front of her, gun raised.  Wordlessly, they move together with practiced ease – the result of two years of facing down the worst that Purgatory could throw at them – stepping back a few feet from the opening.

Nicole isn’t sure exactly sure what she’s expecting to emerge from the darkness – though thanks to Waverly, a desert yeti is now apparently on the list of possibilities – but it certainly isn’t _this._

A cowboy.

An honest to god _cowboy._

She might have mistaken him for Doc on her first glance if it wasn’t for the full goatee covering his entire chin beneath his mustache, thick and wavy and extending all the way down to the cross of his continental tie.  He’s clutching a low-crowned black derby hat in one hand, the other smoothing over his slicked back hair as his eyes dart between Nicole and Waverly and over their shoulders and then back again.

His long, black, leather duster covers most of his clothing, but Nicole can make out the lapels of his woolen suit jacket, pulled tight over a waistcoat with the chain of a pocket watch just barely visible.  The black woolen trousers and dusty cowboy boots round out the look, and Nicole certainly doesn’t miss the leather holster hanging from his hip with the ivory-handled six-shooter protruding from beneath the flap of his coat.

“You should not be here,” he says again.  _“Ma’am,”_ he adds, when he realizes he’s looking down the barrel of Nicole’s revolver.

“Who are you?” Nicole asks warily, one hand keeping her Sky Hawk leveled at the man while she blades her body subconsciously and throws her other arm out in front of Waverly in a protective manner.

“The name is John Hicks Adams,” he says, fidgeting with the brim of the derby hat for a minute before sticking out a hand in greeting.  “Sheriff of El Dorado County, and U.S. Marshal in the great state of California.”

His words are thick with drawl, heavier even than Doc’s.  Nicole keeps her gun trained on him, watching for any sudden movements, especially in the vicinity of his holster.

“U.S. Marshal…”  She pauses as she connects the dots in her head.  _“You’re_ the missing Marshal?”

 _“Missing?”_   He frowns, running his hand over his hair one last time before placing his hat back on his head, tucking it securely above his ears.  “I do suppose one might consider me to be _‘missing’_ by now.”

“And you’re responsible,” she begins, sweeping her boot in front of her, sending a rib bone skittering across the compacted dirt, “for all of this?”  She brings her other hand up to frame her grip, steadying her aim.

“Lord in Heaven, no!” Adams answers, his face going even paler than it already was.  “My entire existence is haunted by this creature without hope for end in sight.”

“Creature?” Waverly asks, speaking up for the first time since Adams appeared.  “Wait a minute…”  She and Nicole exchange a quick glance before she steps forward slightly.  “There’s a _creature_ involved, and you are a U.S. Marshal.  Are you…  Are you Black Badge, Marshal Adams?”

“My apologies, ma’am, but I do believe you are mistaken,” he says, moving his hands cautiously after Nicole nods her permission, pulling his duster open to expose his suit jacket.  He points to the shiny badge pinned to his chest over his heart.  “My badge is silver, not black.”

“It’s okay, Marshal,” Waverly says, taking another step forward, an edge of excitement creeping into her voice.  “We know about the Black Badge Division.  Deputy Marshal Xavier Dolls, of the Cross-Border Task Force, runs the office in our town.”

“Cross-Border?”  He scrubs at his chin, his fingers twisting and twirling the end of his beard while he considers this.  “They have Marshals down in Mexico now?”

“Canada…” Waverly says slowly, her brow furrowing.

“The _Yukon?!”_   He shakes his head in disbelief.  “They got the boys up there regulatin’ the gold rush?”

“Black Badge Division,” Waverly says again, side-eyeing Nicole for a moment.  “Established by President Theodore Roosevelt to investigate the supernatural in the United States and Canada?”

“President _who?”_   Adams takes his hat off and begins to fidget with it again.  “Investigate the…”  He looks back and forth between Nicole and Waverly a couple of times.  “Pardon my askin’, but how long have you ladies been out here?  Are you drinkin’ enough water?  I am growin’ concerned you might be sufferin’ from what we call the _desert delirium.”_

“Okay, so…” Waverly turns to Nicole.  “Not a BBD case, then,” she says, making a _whoops_ face.

“Might I inquire about the two of you, ma’am,” Adams asks, eyeing Nicole’s gun, which is still pointed at his center mass.  “Have _los bandidos_ become _las bandidas_ in my absence?”

Nicole considers him for a moment, her finger still pressed tight against the trigger guard.  She looks to Waverly, who gives her a shrug, and though every fiber of her being is still on high alert, she finally lowers her revolver.  He puts the derby back on his head and tips it at her, just like Doc always does.

“No,” Nicole says, tucking the gun into her waistband again.  “We’re not bandits.  I’m Officer Nicole Haught.  Undersheriff in the town of Purgatory.”

“A fellow lawman?” he asks, raising an eyebrow before coughing awkwardly.  “Pardon my manners, ma’am.  A law _woman.”_   He sticks out his hand again and this time Nicole reaches for it.

Her hand passes right through his, sending a chill up her entire arm.

“Ooooo…  We were _right…”_ Waverly mumbles, trying to be quiet about it, but failing.

“How very curious,” Adams says, staring at his own hand, turning it palm up, then down, then back up again.  “And this is your deputy?” he eventually asks, looking at Waverly.

“This is my…” she looks to Waverly, who subtly shakes her head, _“…partner,”_ she finishes.  “Waverly Earp.”

“Earp?” he asks, his eyes going wide.  “As in the great Marshal _Wyatt_ Earp?”

“He’s my gr—” Waverly hesitates with a frown, and Nicole wishes she could comfort her.  It’s been over two years, and Waverly’s lineage is still a vulnerable point for her.  A raw nerve constantly exposed.  “Umm...  We’re sort of related,” she finally says.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Marshal,” she adds, giving him her signature smile and wave.

“I assure you, Miss Earp,” Adams says, withdrawing his hand after what happened with Nicole, choosing to tip his hat at Waverly instead, “the pleasure is all mine.”

“Speaking of bandits,” Nicole says, falling into her parade rest out of habit, her hands resting on her belt.  She’s adopted the Officer Haught persona that comes to her so naturally, an air of authority settling in her bones.  “How exactly did you end up all the way out here, Marshal?”

“The Mason Henry Gang,” Adams mutters darkly.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Nicole asks, as though she’s interviewing a routine witness.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his head dropping the slightest bit as his thumb and forefinger absentmindedly run back and forth along the gold chain of his pocket watch.  “It started when I was down in the territories lookin’ for a band of Confederates led by a man named Captain Ingram that had gunned down Sheriff Staples while robbing the roomin’ house where he was staying.”

“Soldiers killed the local lawman?” Nicole asks, surprised.

“It was not uncommon in those days,” he answers with a shrug.  “They holed themselves up in a shack outside of town, and with the help of the Volunteer Cavalry, we got them surrounded.”  He takes the watch out of his pocket, rubbing his thumb over a dent in the back of it.  “They chose not to go down without a fight.  There was as shoot-out, and a bullet struck my watch.  It saved my life, if you can imagine that.  But it still glanced into my ribs and put me down for a good while.”

Adams pops the watch open, gazing at a small photograph tucked into the lip of the cover.  There’s a glint in his eyes when he looks back up at Nicole and Waverly again.

“That is when I met my Marisol,” he says softly, his bushy mustache curling upward in what Nicole can only assume is a smile underneath.  “Nursed me back to health, she did.  Some lawman I turned out to be,” he says with a chuckle.  “Let the little lady steal my heart right out from under my nose.”

A warmth washes over Nicole at his words, and she sneaks a quick glance at Waverly.  Her eyes are alight with fascination at his story and she’s smiling brightly as he talks about his love.  Nicole thinks about how Waverly managed to do the same thing, and she wonders how she got so lucky.

“It certainly did not hurt that she kept my belly full of _pastelón_ that made me think I might have already died and gone to heaven.”  He grins broadly and pats his stomach, and Waverly lets out a little giggle that melts Nicole’s heart.  “Made it with real plantains the stagecoaches brought up Mexico.  I have _never_ tasted anythin’ so sublime.”

“She sounds really wonderful,” Waverly says, genuine and enthusiastic.

“Indeed,” Adams agrees softly.  “She is the whole world.”

Waverly subconsciously moves toward Nicole a little, habit always bringing them closer together.  It’s all Nicole can do to keep from reaching out to her.  From drawing her near.  She forces herself to focus on gathering the information instead, her fingers tightening around her belt.

“You said there was a gang?” Nicole prompts, giving him an encouraging smile.

“Aye,” he nods.  “That there was.  Marisol and I… Our love burned with a fever that was stronger than the one that gripped me when I was wounded.  But there were obligations that needed tendin’ to, not the least of which was bein’ sworn in as the successor for Sheriff Staples.  I had to return to Placerville for swearin’ in.”

“You had to leave Marisol behind?” Waverly asks, sympathetic.

“Much to our chagrin,” Adams confirms, ducking his head a little.  “But not before askin’ her to wait for me.  And givin’ her the signet ring my father gave me, with a promise to return as soon as I had made the necessary preparations required for her to join me up north.”

“You proposed,” Nicole says softly, letting herself get caught up in the love story for a moment.  Her heart thumps a little louder inside her chest, drowning out a secret that whispers across her soul.  She readjusts her grip on her belt so that her elbow is just barely touching Waverly’s arm.

“Not a proper proposal,” Adams corrects, holding up a finger long enough to bring them all to a pause before he slips the watch back into place and digs into the other pocket of his waistcoat.  He withdraws a silk handkerchief, folded into a small bundle.  He unwraps it gingerly, presenting its contents to them in his open palm.  “Not until I can give her this.”

Nestled into the white silk square, the letters _~JHA~_ stitched into one corner, is a delicate gold band with a pearl set into the crest.

“It’s beautiful,” Nicole breathes, forgetting their circumstances for a moment and reaching out to touch it.  Her finger goes right through it, of course.  Right through the band and the cloth and his hand.  She frowns and pulls her hand back and, on instinct, Waverly slips hers into it once it’s back at Nicole’s side.

“I nearly had my affairs in order when the Mason Henry Gang made another appearance,” he practically spits, pulling his hand back and curling it into a tight fist.  “Another group of Confederates, this time partisan rangers, degenerated into a vicious gang of outlaws, committin’ robberies and murders and terrible acts against women.  They were preyin’ on stagecoaches, ranchers, and other travelers, especially if they were known Union men.”

“Partisan rangers?”  Nicole frowns.

“Bushwhackers,” Waverly says, squeezing Nicole’s hand gently.  “Special bands of Confederate soldiers formally authorized by the southern government,” she continues when she realizes both Nicole and Adams are looking at her with peculiar expressions.  “They were tasked with… umm…  well, let’s just say they made resisters to the Confederacy _disappear._   Sometimes it was well-planned raids on Union military outposts.  But most of the time, it was families in rural areas that were known to be sympathetic to the northern cause, providing aid or food or shelter.”

“Snakes, they were,” Adams cuts in, incensed.  “Regular monsters,” he adds, a visible shudder passing through his body.

“And they came for you on your way back to Marisol?” Nicole asks gently.

“That is not entirely correct, Officer Haught,” Adams sighs, loosening his fist so that he can carefully rewrap the ring, tucking it safely back into his pocket.  “I had begun the journey to return to my love.  She was to meet me at the Vallecito Station so that I could bring her back with me to our new home and we could finally be wed.”

Waverly’s hand tightens in Nicole’s.  They’d been right.  They’d been right about so much of it.  Nicole feels a rush of pride at how good of a team they are when they work together. 

Wynonna always teases them about being the _“Brains and the Brawn,”_ but Nicole doesn’t see themselves that way.  Waverly may be the one with all of the book smarts and fantastical knowledge – she would never deny her that – but Nicole is also an investigator by heart, and when they put their heads together, their skillsets tend to complement each other well, giving them a pretty good track record at figuring things out one way or another.

And as for the brawn…  Well, Waverly certainly isn’t carrying around a couple of sticks just because they accessorize her outfit.  Nicole has seen her put Revenants more than twice her size in the dirt, keeping them off-balance long enough for Wynonna to put them down.  Plus, there’s that time none of them are ever allowed to talk about when she put Dolls on his back in the training room.

Waverly Earp can kick ass just as well as the rest of them, and that’s the way Nicole likes it.

“During a stop at San Juan Bautista along the way, I got word that the Mason Henry Gang was at it again, raidin’ several ranches in nearby areas,” Adams continues, drawing Nicole’s attention again.  “My posse and I had been pursuing them for nearly a year, but we were never able to locate their hideout thanks to a system of spies set up by the secessionists, always warnin’ the outlaws of our approach.”

“They had plans to hit the coach carrying the large shipment of gold coins,” Nicole draws the conclusion easily.

“Your lawman has surely made an excellent decision in choosin’ his Undersheriff, Officer Haught,” Adams says, his tone full of respect.  Nicole feels the heat rising through her cheeks, but she nods once in acknowledgement and thanks, feeling Waverly press a little closer against her arm.  “You are correct.  And it was the very stagecoach that was _also_ destined for Vallecito Station.  Surely you can see what a fortuitous turn this was.  A chance for me to catch them unawares and put a stop to them once and for all.”

“Ohhh…” Waverly gasps.  “You decided to escort the coach without telling anyone else.”

“Very good, Miss Earp,” he nods, impressed.  “Marshal Earp must be very proud of you.”  Waverly instinctively ducks under Nicole’s arm, leaning into her side.  Nicole stiffens a little when she realizes Adams is looking back and forth between the two of them with narrowed eyes, but Waverly doesn’t seem to notice, chewing on her lip to try and hide her pleased grin at his compliment.  After a moment, his eyes soften with understanding, and Nicole sees his mustache twitch in the same way that Doc’s and Nedley’s do when they speak of the two of them affectionately.  “You have yourself a fine _partner_ there, Officer Haught.”

“She’s _extraordinary,”_ Nicole breathes, her arm creeping up to wrap around Waverly’s shoulders, holding her close.  Waverly’s arm snakes around Nicole’s waist, resting there like it’s the most natural thing in the world.  There’s a twinkle in Adams’s eye as he watches them for a moment before continuing with his tale.

“I got one of the boys from Camp Low, Benjamin Mayfield, to pose as the driver, and I took my spot inside the coach itself.”  He’s mirroring Nicole now, standing tall with his hands resting on his gun belt.  “We made it as far as Grapevine Canyon near the Tejon Pass when they attacked.  There were four of them, set up for a proper ambush.  Poor Benjamin did not stand a chance.  God rest his soul, he fell before he even saw them comin’.”

Adams pulls his hat off again, clutching it close to his chest for a moment before he speaks again.  It’s clear he is still carrying a century and a half’s worth of guilt over the young man’s death.

“They thought they would have it easy after takin’ out the driver.  Bastards were not expectin’ to find me waitin’ for them when they opened the coach.”  The muscles in his cheek twitch just beneath his eye, his voice almost a snarl.  “Managed to drop Tom Hawkins and John Rogers in the shootout that followed.  But that was not enough in the end.  John Mason and Jim Henry still got away with the stagecoach, and I was bleedin’ from my shoulder.”

“You survived the encounter with the leaders of the gang?” Waverly asks, surprised.

“I am tougher than I look, Miss Earp,” Adams answers a little smugly, though he’s absentmindedly rubbing at his shoulder after mentioning his wound.  “Though it would seem not quite tough enough,” he adds sadly, looking around at their surroundings.  “Mason and Henry were both heartless cutthroats, but Mason…  He had a wild look in his eye that day, the likes of which I have never seen before.  It was like his greed was _alive._   Livin’ and breathin’ inside of him like some kind of monster.  I should have cut my losses and let him go.  But you know how it is,” hey says, ducking his head and scratching at the back of his neck.  “My shoulder was not the only thing that was wounded that day, and a man’s pride can sometimes have a life of its own, as well.”

“You went after them,” Nicole says, a statement rather than a question.  She understands.  Understands what it’s like having monsters out there that continue to hurt innocent people over and over.  Understands that reckless desire to do whatever it takes to put a stop to them once and for all. 

Her arm tightens around Waverly’s shoulder.

“I did,” he admits, his hands dropping back to his gun belt again.  “Should have gone back for reinforcements.  But instead, I hopped on one of their abandoned horses and made for the mouth of the canyon.  Started followin’ after the tracks left behind by the coach and its mules.”  He touches his shoulder again.  “I had to stop before long, though, and find shelter.  Needed to get the bleedin’ stopped.  They got a pretty good head start on me.”

“And you didn’t turn back?” Waverly asks, already knowing the answer, but still unable to believe it.

“No, Miss Earp,” Adams says, regret lacing his voice.  “I did not.  It was a fool’s errand, but it turns out I am a bit of a fool.”  His hand subconsciously moves to rest on the ivory handle of his revolver.  “It took three days before I was strong enough to ride again.  I was lucky Ranger had rations and supplies in his saddlebags, or I never would have made it out of that cave in the canyon wall.”

“Ranger?” Nicole asks, frowning.

“Well, Officer.  I do not know what his name was before,” Adams answers with a soft smile.  “But he has been Ranger for a long time now.” 

He brings his finger and thumb to his mouth and lets out an ear-splitting whistle, making Waverly flinch under Nicole’s arm.  A minute later, they hear the same haunting whinny they’d heard yesterday – was it just yesterday? – when they were still in the Jeep.  Nicole catches a flash of white out of the corner of her eye, and she and Waverly exchange a look before it approaches them at an easy canter.

The spectral horse stops directly in front of Nicole and Waverly, tossing its head back and nickering, pawing at the ground a couple of times.  They both stand stock still, afraid to move as it sizes them up just as it had in the middle of the highway.  After a long moment, it turns and bumps its head into Adams’s shoulder and he strokes its nose affectionately.

“Ladies,” he says, moving down to pat the horse’s neck.  “I would like you to meet Ranger.”

“Oh, we’ve met,” Nicole mutters.  Adams raises an eyebrow in surprise and Nicole shifts her weight between her feet.  “He, uh…  He came and found us.  Right in the middle of the road.  He’s actually the reason that we’re here,” she adds.  “That we found you.”

“Pardon, but…  Are you sayin’ that Ranger _brought you_ here?” Adams asks, incredulous.

“He approached us on the highway,” Waverly explains.  “He walked right up to us, stared us down, and then took off into the desert,” she says, a slight shudder running through her body against Nicole’s side.  “But before he disappeared, he stopped to make sure we were coming after him.  We’ve been following his tracks ever sense.”

“Jumpin’ Jehoshephat,” Adams whispers, astonished.  “He goes out lookin’ for help all the time, but he has never brought any back with him.”  He looks back and forth between them again.  “He must have really seen somethin’ in the two of you.  Must have considered you worthy.”

As if on cue, Ranger nickers loudly, nudging at his master’s shoulder again.  After another moment, he wanders off somewhere behind the outcropping of rocks.

“So Ranger helped you track down his old rider?” Nicole asks, getting Adams back on track.

“That he did,” Adams answers with a nod.  “I was ridin’ hard, with a clipped wing, but fueled by determination and a sense of justice, however misplaced it may have been.”  He shakes his head, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.  “It took me two days to catch up to them, but when I did…  I surely wished I had not.”

“What happened?” Waverly encourages him gently.

“I…”  He fidgets with the chain of his pocket watch again.  “I fear that if I say it out loud, you will think I have lost my mind.  Verily I say, there is not a chance in the Lord’s Heaven that you will believe me.”

“Try us,” Nicole huffs out before she can stop herself.  Adams winces a little, and Nicole raises a hand to placate.  “I’m sorry, Marshal.  I didn’t mean it like that.  It’s just…” she glances at Waverly, “we’ve seen some incredibly strange things, too.  I promise that whatever you tell us, we won’t think you are making it up.”

“I…” he hesitates again.  He eventually takes a deep breath, squaring his shoulders, and presses on.  “Mason’s avarice had completely consumed him.  His body was twisted, hulking and hunched over.  I thought for sure that I had caught a fever through my bullet wound and that my mind was seein’ things that were not there.”

“The twisted, shadowy figure,” Waverly gasps, looking up at Nicole with wide eyes.  “The legend was correct.”

“So, not a desert yeti after all,” Nicole says, trying to chuckle, but only managing to produce a strange gurgling sound instead.

“I do believe you are havin’ a laugh at my expense,” Adams says quietly, deflating slowly.

“I assure you we aren’t,” Waverly is quick to say.  “Can you tell me more about him?  What he looked like?  How he acted?  The way he moved?”  Adams watches her, his eyes narrowed, still not trusting her intentions.  “It’s only that I’ve read a lot about these things.  I wonder if might know something about what happened to him.”

“He was…” Adams appears to be weighing his options, and evidently decides to believe her.  “He was pale.  _So pale._  His eyes were glowin’ yellow and his teeth were razor sharp.”  He pauses, wringing his hands in front of him.  “His hands looked almost like claws, long bony fingers with talons like a bird at the end.  And he…  he…” Adams shudders, unable to complete his thought.

“He was ravenous, wasn’t he?” Waverly asks, filling in the blank.  Nicole and Adams both stare at her.  “I think I know what happened next,” she says gently, looking at Adams, a sadness in her eyes.  “It’s okay, Marshal.  You can tell me.”

“He was _devourin’_ Jim Henry,” he finally says, his voice wavering.  “Rippin’ him limb from limb.  His teeth tearin’ through the flesh like a piece of roasted chicken.”  He swallows hard a couple of times, as if trying to keep himself from being sick.  “I tried to run.  I wanted to forget all of it.  Forget my blasted sense of duty and forget the stagecoach and forget I had ever even _heard_ the name John Mason.  I tried to run.”  He reaches up and tugs his continental necktie loose, tilting his head back slightly.  For the first time, Nicole and Waverly can see his throat behind his long goatee, a long, jagged scar starting just below his chin and disappearing under the now open collar of his shirt.  “I tried to run.  But he was too fast.”

She knew it was coming.  They’re standing here talking to the ghost of a man that died a hundred and fifty years ago.  Nicole knew it was coming, but it’s still a blow that knocks the wind out of her, almost bringing her to her knees.

“I’m sorry, Marshal,” Nicole croaks, her voice suddenly thick.  “I’m so sorry.”  Waverly can’t bring herself to speak yet, but Nicole can see that her eyes are wet, and her arm tightens around Nicole’s waist, her hand fisting in her flannel where it rests just above Nicole’s hip.

“I do not know how I am standin’ here talkin’ to you right now,” he says, doing up the button on his shirt again.  “But ever since that day, I have found myself in the creature’s lair.  There are no traces of Mason left in that thing anymore.  Just a monster that drags the bodies of the dead back here and feeds on them, makin’ me watch every time.”

“A ghoul,” Waverly finally speaks, though her voice cracks around the word.  She clears her throat, standing up a little straighter, and tries again.  “He transformed into a ghoul.”

“How did you know?” Nicole asks, curious.  “Before, I mean.  You already knew before he told you the rest.  How did you know what it was?”

“Do you remember when that pair of mated chupacabras was running amok?  The night we were trying to have our first real date?”

“Of course,” Nicole nods, grinning broadly at the memory.  “How could I forget?  You were standing in the middle of a bunch of slaughtered cows, wearing your formal evening gown and wielding a tire iron.”

“Well, let’s not forget you had a half-conscious Wynonna draped over your shoulder so she could fire Peacemaker.  Even the dry cleaners couldn’t get all of that goo out of _your_ dress.”  Waverly nudges Nicole in the ribs playfully.  “But, anyway.  The week before, when we still didn’t know what was killing the cows and their farmers yet…  I did a _lot_ of research.”

“I remember.  Lots of late night coffee runs.”

“Yeah,” Waverly says, wrinkling her nose.  “Well, ghouls were one of the creatures I read about.  They’re a classification of Underworld demons that feast on human flesh, but there are a few accounts of men who let their greed overtake them transforming into one.”  Waverly chews her lip for a moment, trying to recall the rest of the details.  “I discounted ghouls as a possibility for the havoc in Purgatory, though, because they are primarily desert dwelling demons.  They lure unwary people into the desert wastes, where they usually keep a lair, and devour them.”

“Well, I think we found the lair,” Nicole deadpans.

“You have,” Adams confirms.  “And I shall say it again.  You should not be here.  It could return any minute, and you would do well to be as far from here as possible when it does.”

“We can’t just leave you here.  Come with us,” Waverly pleads.  “Bring Ranger and come with us.”

“I cannot,” Adams shakes his head urgently.  “Every time I try to leave, I always end up back here again.  I have wondered often if I have managed to find myself in Hell.”

“We can help you find Marisol,” Waverly tries again.

“Do not offer a man that kind of false hope,” Adams snaps, angrily.  “It is a crueler fate than the one I am already at the mercy of.  Now go!”  He turns to Nicole.  “I implore you, Officer Haught.  Take your love, and _go._   Before it is too late.”

“We’re also trapped,” Nicole says firmly, shaking her head.  “We can’t leave any more than you can.  Whatever this is, our only choice is to see it through.”  Her voice softens a bit as she squeezes Waverly’s shoulder.  “But Waverly wasn’t offering false hope.  Marisol is here.  In this very desert.  I’ve seen her.  We _both_ have.”

“It must be a trick,” Adams insists, though the anger is gone from his voice.

“No moreso than you having this conversation with us,” Waverly says, shaking her head.  “She was wandering the desert alone, crying out for you.  _Where is he?  Where did he go?  He will be here.  He is coming._   She’s waiting for you,” she says softly.  “She’s still waiting for you.”

“My Marisol…” he whispers, his shoulders sagging as he folds in on himself.  “All this time, she has been alone.  And scared.  All because I wo—”

A low rumbling interrupts whatever Adams was about to say.  The ground beneath their feet shakes, the discarded bones dancing across the surface, rattling as they go.

“It is too late,” Adams whispers, horrified.  “It is too late.  It is too late.  It is too late.”

The sound grows steadily louder, and soon they can see a cloud of dust moving toward them, until eventually, the Phantom Stage emerges.  Four mules, driven to a grueling pace, pull it closer by the second, revealing more and more detail as it draws near.  The rigging that holds the team in place, the covered wagon where the crates of gold were secured, the wheels spinning so rapidly it’s difficult to pick out the individual spokes.

But perhaps the most alarming detail is the one that’s missing.

No one is driving the carriage.

Where they expected to see the twisted, ghoulish remains of John Mason, instead they’re met with an empty bench seat, the reins flapping wildly behind the team of mules.

The coach stampedes past them, leaving wagon tracks in the cracked earth, the rumble rising to a dull roar in their ears.  It’s enough to make them miss the hissing sound coming from above them.

It eventually catches Nicole’s ear over the ruckus when the cloud of dust is still thick around them, and she spins on her heel just in time to catch sight of the slavering ghoul crouched atop the sharp rocks, poised to attack.  Its sinewy muscles are coiled and stretched, its clawed feet scratching against the stone as it digs in. 

It all happens so fast, the others still choking on the dust in the wake of the stagecoach, she barely has time to draw her Sky Hawk from the waistband of her jeans by the time it pounces.

And then it is upon her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to everyone that has been reading and commenting along the way of this journey! It means more to me than you could know. 
> 
> Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of our spooky little adventure on Halloween. :)


	7. I've Dealt with My Ghosts and I've Faced All My Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "I'm Movin' On" - Rascal Flatts

_It’s heavier than it looks._

That’s the first thing that crosses Nicole’s mind as she struggles to draw a breath, a crushing weight on her chest pinning her to the ground.

_It’s heavier than it looks._

She can feel the jagged shards of bone littering the ground digging into her back and shoulders, ripping her flannel – and her skin – in places.  Feel the razor-sharp claws tearing at her ribs and throat.

She can smell the putrescence on its breath, hot and fetid in her face.  Smell the sour tang of its unwashed body, a century and a half of dirt and sweat and sulfur permeating its desiccated, leathery skin.

She can see its yellow eyes inches from her own.  See them burning not with the color of the sun or spring flowers or the eggs that Waverly makes them for breakfast on their lazy Sundays, but with that of infernal hellfire.

She can taste the copper in her mouth where one of her teeth sliced into her tongue with the impact.  Taste it mixing with the dust from the air and the clay from the ground and the ash from the aura that engulfs the creature, the flavor of it causing bile to rise in the back of her throat.

But worst of all, she can hear Waverly.  Hear Waverly screaming, her voice raw and choked with sobs.  Hear Waverly calling out her name over and over and over again. 

“Nicole!”

She hears it breaking through the fog in her fuzzy mind as it washes over her.

_“Nicole!”_

She has to get up.  Waverly is calling for her.

**_“Nicole!”_ **

Waverly _needs_ her.

She gives herself over to her instincts – her _cop-brain,_ Waverly calls it when she’s trying to be cute – and forces herself to assess the situation.

It’s straddling her, pinning her arms to her side with its powerful legs as it crouches over her.  One hand digs into her chest while the other is wrapped around her throat, trying to throttle the life out of her.  She can feel its claws cutting marks into the soft flesh beneath her jaw and just under her ear.

The sky might be dampened with perpetual twilight, but Nicole is seeing stars regardless.  She’s starting to feel a little floaty, but she tries to focus on the solid things around her while they are still able to weigh her down.  For one thing, her fingers are still curled around the hard rubber grip of her revolver, if she could just manage to get her arm free.

Her lungs are screaming at her now – how long has it been…  it feels like hours, but she knows it probably hasn’t been more than a handful of seconds if Waverly is still yelling for her – and she ignores them, concentrating instead on drawing up her knees until her boots find a patch of earth that’s clear of bones and loose dirt and doesn’t give when she plants her heels.

She bucks her hips violently beneath its haunches, creating enough space so that she can use her new leverage to kick up off the ground and bend sharply at the waist until she is practically folded into a _V_ shape, like the stretches they did before basketball games.  For that split-second that she’s suspended in the new position before her lower half will go slamming back down to the ground, she twists one of her legs at the knee and manages to hook her ankle under the creature’s jaw, using her own gravity and momentum to pull it back down with her.

The hold around Nicole’s throat falters when the ghoul topples backward, momentarily pinned by her leg still wedged up under its chin, and it’s just enough of a disruption for her to wrench herself free of its grasp.  It’s pushing itself back up on top of her again, easily slipping away from her unleveraged leg bar, but she’s already had enough time to pry her arm loose.

The shot is deafening.

It echoes through the desolation with a loud _crack,_ like the thunder just before it brings the rain. 

She’s retching before she can stop herself.  The bullet had passed directly through its eye, splattering strips of flesh and fragments of bone and globs of brain matter all over her face, the rancid ichor turning her stomach.

With her range of motion no longer restricted after its body slumps to the side, Nicole pushes to her feet, the sharp pain in her ribs causing her to stumble.  She rubs at her throat as she takes a few shaky steps toward Waverly, who is already moving in her direction to meet her.  But before she can get there, Waverly freezes, her eyes going wide.

 _“Nicole!”_ she screams, and Nicole turns around in time to see the ghoul barreling toward her again, seemingly unaffected by the gaping hole in the side of its head.

Her arm is shaking when she raises it, but she forces it steady long enough to unload the remainder of her cylinder, all five shots hitting the creature center mass. 

It doesn’t even break stride.

Nicole braces herself for the impact just before it hits and, even though it still tackles her to the ground, she’s at least prepared for it this time.  She isn’t able to break her fall, and the Sky Hawk goes skittering across the ground, coming to rest several feet away, but she does manage to get her arms out in front of her, attempting to hold it at bay once it’s on top of her.

“Get away from her, you wretch!” Waverly yells, twirling her sticks as she approaches. 

The elaborate movements draw its attention, and it hisses, crawling off of Nicole and moving toward her.  Nicole kicks out, trying to keep its focus on her instead of Waverly, but it ignores her as it licks its chops and begins to advance.  She rolls up onto her knees, crouching low and then driving forward, but the creature whirls around and swings its powerful arms at her while she’s still in the air, knocking her backward into the outcropping of rocks.  The side of her head bounces off of the unforgiving stone, a stream of blood blurring her vision, and she suddenly feels very heavy.

“Pick on someone your own size!” 

Waverly’s voice sounds like it’s a mile away, punctuated by dull thuds and sharp smacks that must be coming from her practiced strikes against the ghoul.  Nicole tries to stand, but her knees keep buckling, causing her to slide back down the face of the rock.

The sound of wood snapping and splintering adds an extra urgency to Nicole’s efforts, spurring her on.  She tries again to haul herself up, and eventually finds her feet, though still a bit wobbly, her throbbing head making her woozy.  She can hear Waverly grunting with exertion, growing more frantic the louder the creature hisses and growls. 

Waverly cries out sharply, and every fiber of Nicole’s being is screaming at her to get to her girlfriend.  She tries to take a step forward, but sinks to one knee, unsteady.  The blood oozing from her head causes her hair to stick to her face, and she tries to push it out of her eyes, her hands coming away slippery and red.

“Officer Haught.”  She feels a strange coldness in her shoulders, like someone just dumped a bucket of ice water over her head, sending a shiver down her spine.  She looks up, squinting, to find Adams trying to grab her by the tops of her arms, his hands passing right through her.  “Officer Haught.  You must make haste.  Your love is in peril.”

She can hear Waverly struggling, and Nicole knows it’s true.  If she isn’t able to do something quickly…  She shakes her head, trying to clear it, unwilling to think about the consequences.  Taking a deep breath and gritting her teeth against the pain, she wills herself to take a few shaky steps forward.

“Do not give up, Officer Haught,” Adams implores, his eyes sad and pleading.  “Do not fail her like I failed my Marisol.”

“Nic—”  Her name breaks in Waverly’s mouth, followed by vicious snarling.  “Nicole…” she manages weakly.

Waverly _needs_ her.

_“Waverly!”_

A stick of Doc’s dynamite explodes in Nicole’s chest, rage and adrenaline and desperation raining down in the fallout.  She feels herself disconnecting from the moment – from the _pain_ – and she watches as her body vaults over the jagged rock jutting out in front of her.  She takes it in a single bound, hitting the ground in front of it hard enough to jar her ankles when she lands, but it doesn’t break her momentum.

Her long legs only need a few strides to reach them, Waverly trying to claw her way across the bone-riddled earth while the ghoul drags her back by her leg, its razor-sharp nails digging into the flesh of her calf through her ripped jeans.  Nicole acts without thinking, her instincts taking over, grabbing it from behind and wrapping it up in a rear naked chokehold as she yanks it backward off of Waverly.

“Nicole,” Waverly gasps, scrambling away, reaching for the stick that’s still in one piece.

Nicole struggles to keep the creature in her grasp as it plants its feet and uses its powerful legs to push back against her.  She adjusts her grip to a figure-four hold, hoping the extra stability will give her the advantage, but then all she can feel is _pain._  

 _Excruciating_ pain.

It blooms in her forearm, radiating up and across her chest as the flesh and muscle and sinew tears beneath the ghoul’s maw.  She screams, falling back, her teeth clacking together when she hits the ground.  She grabs at the jagged wound, blood seeping between her fingers and running down her other arm.  White-hot pain lances through her resolve as she slumps against the ground and then she’s struggling to breathe, its weight pressing down on her once more.

 _It’s heavier than it looks_.

 _“Nicole!”_ Waverly is yelling again, hovering above them, bringing her stick down against the creature’s back and head over and over and over again.  But it’s no use, and the stick eventually snaps in two just like the other one did.

Nicole wants to tell Waverly that she loves her.  That she’s always loved her.  That she’s never loved anyone the way that she loves her.  She wants to tell Waverly to run.  To run as fast and far as she can.  To save herself and find a way out of here and get back to Wynonna.  She wants to tell Waverly that she’ll be alright.  That if this is how she goes – sacrificing herself to save Waverly – then she can accept that.  That if she dies having loved Waverly, then it means she really _lived,_ and that’s okay.  That she and John Hicks Adams will keep each other company, trying to make sure this never happens to anyone else.

But instead, when she opens her mouth, all that comes out is Waverly’s name.

_Waverly Earp._

She says it all the time.  More than is entirely necessary, really.  But she loves the sound of it and the way it rolls off of her tongue and the way that it dusts Waverly’s cheeks pink when she smiles and ducks her head after Nicole says it _that_ way.  The same way she said it on the day they met, nervous and flustered and soaked with beer.

_Waverly Earp._

But that’s not the case now.  It’s whispered and desperate and full of resignation.  She’s still amazed that she got to call Waverly hers, even if just for a little while, and if this the end for her, if these are the last words she’ll ever speak, Nicole wants them to be _Waverly Earp._

She thinks she hears Waverly yelling something, but between the overwhelming pain and the fact that she’s barely holding back the ghoul that’s snapping its teeth together mere inches from her face, she doesn’t really have the capacity to process it at the moment.  She feels a sharp tugging at her waist and fleetingly wonders if the creature has decided to rip her open instead.

When the warm, sticky fluid sprays across her face and neck, Nicole knows she is dying.  She knows the ghoul has gutted her with its claws and that it’s ripping her apart, spilling her blood as a sacrifice to its avarice and hunger. 

She hopes Waverly isn’t watching.  That she’s managed to get away.  She hopes John Hicks Adams will take her in.  That she won’t be forced to wander the desert alone like Marisol.  She hopes Nedley will forgive her.  That he’ll look after the Earps even though they won’t want him to.  She hopes Waverly will move on.  That she and Wynonna will find happiness again.

She hopes she won’t forget Waverly.  She’d rather remember her for an eternity, no matter how badly it hurts, than to have their time together taken away from her.

She hopes…

She hopes…

She hopes that she is not hallucinating.  Because right now, all she can see is Waverly Earp standing above her with a tomahawk in one hand and the ghoul’s head in the other.

“W-Waverly…” she breathes out slowly.  The deadweight of the creature’s decapitated body is suffocating, and she’s still unsure of herself.

Waverly is staring back at her with a stunned look on her face, but before she can respond, the ground shakes, violently enough that Waverly falls next to Nicole, the malformed head of the ghoul rolling ominously between them.  She tries to push herself back up, but her eyes go wide with fear when she realizes she’s being pinned down by an invisible force.

 _“Nicole…”_   Her voice is laced with panic and urgency, and Nicole struggles to move beneath the weight of the monster’s corpse, but she manages to wrestle one arm free enough to reach across and take Waverly’s hand.

“I’m here,” she says, trying to reassure Waverly, but also maybe trying to convince herself a little that it’s actually true.

“What’s happening?” Waverly asks, grasping Nicole’s hand in a vice grip.

“I don’t…” Nicole wheezes, breathing still difficult.  “I don’t… know...  Are you… okay?”

“Yeah,” Waverly says, trying to shift closer, but failing.  Whatever is holding her in place is stronger than she is, and it only makes her squeeze Nicole’s hand tighter.  “Look at the sky.  We killed it, but nothing has changed.”

The ground finally stills, the bits of bone and dirt and shale settling around them, though neither of them can move yet.  Adams comes rushing up to them, kneeling beside their heads, his eyes bright and wild.

“You have done it,” he says, barely able to contain his excitement.  “By the grace of God in Heaven, you have done it!  You have vanquished the foul demon.”  He immediately moves to try and help push the remains of what used to be John Mason off of Nicole, remembering only after his arms pass through both the creature and her body beneath it – causing Nicole to hiss at the icy cold sensation – that he is unable to interact with anything in the physical realm.

“Why can’t we move?”  Waverly turns away from Nicole and tilts her head back awkwardly to look at Adams where he’s positioned above them.  “I think we’re still trapped here.  Do you know what’s happening?”

“You are immobilized?”  The elated grin falls from his face in an instant, the ends of his mustache turning downward so dramatically with his frown that they disappear into his beard.  “That is an irony to be sure,” he says shaking his head, confused.  “As it would seem that for the first time since I found myself in this situation, I actually feel as though I am no longer tethered to this lair.”

“Maybe then…  you could…” Nicole grunts, wishing she could move at least enough to create some breathing room for herself, “come with us…  if we can… get free.”

“I really thought…”  Waverly shakes her head, frowning, her voice low.  “I thought once we killed it, we’d get back to reality.  That we’d be able to go home.”

“I am sorry to say I do not understand wha—” Adams begins, but cuts off when the silence is broken by a hair-raising echo.

_The sound of a woman wailing._

Adams gasps, his hand immediately going for his gun out of instinct, but Nicole and Waverly share a soft look and Nicole shifts her hand until she can lace their fingers together.  They know what’s happening.  The ghoul that was keeping Adams trapped here is no more.  He’s no longer hidden by the ravenous aura of the monster, and Marisol has finally been drawn to his presence after all of these years.

Her cries grow louder as she draws near, and Nicole can see the would-be muscles in Adams’s jaw flexing, his eyes glistening in the eerie twilight.  He’s fighting against hope, afraid to let himself believe that this is real.  She knows he is, because she was doing the same thing not five minutes ago when she had resigned herself to death at the hands of the ghoul, only to open her eyes and find Waverly standing above her, both of them still very much alive.

Nicole knows the exact moment that Marisol comes into view.  Adams nearly collapses, a shuddering breath wracking his entire body.  He takes his hat off, clutching it close to his chest, his mouth hanging open and his hand shaking as it subconsciously goes to the pocket where he keeps the ring safely tucked away.

He looks down at Waverly, and then Nicole, his face pale and apologetic, and Nicole reads him like an open book.  He knows they are still trapped here.  Still frozen in place where they are.  He’s a good man.  He wants to help them.  He _does._  

_But, Marisol…_

Adams meets her eye, pleading, and Nicole nods at him with conviction.  He hesitates a moment and they share a look that says everything:  _I’m sorry_ and _don’t be_ and _go to her_ and _thank you._

He scrambles to his feet and runs to her a few feet away, Nicole and Waverly able to see both of them now that he’s no longer obstructing their view.  They still can’t move and Nicole is still struggling to breathe, but Waverly squeezes her hand as they watch the two lovers reunite and Nicole feels a different kind of pressure in her chest.

Marisol hadn’t interacted with them at all before.  Nicole is pretty sure she hadn’t even _seen_ them standing there talking to her.  Or the stick that Waverly had been waving around.  Part of her wonders if the same thing will happen again.  If even after all of this trouble, Adams and Marisol will find themselves this close to each other, yet still unable to be together. 

Her hand tightens subconsciously around Waverly’s.

But the other part – a much larger part that believes in fate and true love and _soulmates,_ no matter _what_ reality you end up in – _knows_ that this time will be different.

When Marisol’s pacing stops, when her wringing hands go still, when the string of mourning still being sobbed in Spanish peters out…  That’s when Nicole knows it’s true. 

Marisol _sees_ Adams.  Sees him standing before her, with his hat in his hand and his heart on his sleeve.  She reaches out with a trembling hand to touch his face and her eyes go wide when she feels him there, solid beneath her fingers.

 _“Oh!”_ she gasps, her other hand going to her mouth, afraid to believe.  “My Johnny!” she cries in heavily accented English.  “You are here!  You are finally here!”

“Yes, my Marisol…” Adams says, thick and hoarse.  “I am here.”

“I knew you would come,” she says, both hands cradling his face now.  “I have been waiting for you.”

“No more waiting, my love,” he chokes, pulling the carefully wrapped ring out of his pocket.  “We will never be apart again.”

Before he can slip the ring on her finger, Marisol surges forward to kiss him.  It takes him by surprise and he stumbles backward a few short steps, but then his arms settle around her waist and he picks her up, spinning them around.  If Nicole didn’t know better, she would swear she could feel a slight breeze rippling through the chilly desert air.

Adams sets Marisol down again, her eyes wide and wet, her cheeks rosy, and her smile lighting up even this accursed darkness.  This time, he does manage to slide the ring into place and then takes both of her hands, clasping them over his heart.

“Let no man put asunder,” he murmurs before leaning in to kiss her again.

Nicole is absolutely certain now that a desert wind has picked up, a few tendrils of her hair that aren’t plastered to the side of her head with blood and gore and ichor fluttering slightly across her face.  Waverly must feel it, too, because she looks over at Nicole, eyes wide. 

And maybe a little teary, but Nicole would certainly never point that out.

Their look is broken when a sharp whistle splits the silence, and they turn to see that Ranger has reappeared and is trotting toward them.  He stops for a moment, lowering his head to nuzzle at them. 

It’s a bizarre sensation.  They can’t feel the breath he is huffing out as he tries to push his nose into the sides of their faces.  What they feel instead is the unsettling chill every time it passes right through their bodies, the same as what had happened with Adams.  Ranger apparently gets frustrated with his inability to receive affection from the two of them and tosses his head back, pawing at the ground with a loud nicker.

Seemingly satisfied, Ranger finally goes to his master, pleased when Adams and Marisol both stroke his nose gently.  He stands stock still, allowing Adams to swing up with practiced ease before pulling Marisol up with him, letting her settle in, sidesaddle across his lap with her dress arranged neatly around them.  She kisses him again and rests her head on his shoulder as he turns Ranger around to face the horizon.

With one last glance over his shoulder, and a raise of his hand that conveys far more than just _goodbye,_ he gently nudges his heels, letting Ranger know it’s time to move forward.  Nicole and Waverly watch them go until they eventually fade from sight, just has Marisol had done before when Waverly had tried to touch her.

“Waverly…” Nicole whispers now that they’re alone.  Truly alone.  Trapped in a barren wasteland, unable to even _move_ now, with the body of a monster still strewn across Nicole’s chest.

Waverly opens her mouth to answer, but whatever she was going to say is carried away on a sudden gust of wind.  It’s blowing in earnest now, whipping around them with incredible force, and they have to turn their heads just to catch their breaths. 

Bits of dirt and detritus and debris pelt Nicole’s face and a high-pitched whine is beginning to build over the roar.  Waverly’s hand is clutching hers so tightly that she’s losing circulation in her fingers, but she doesn’t care because she’s gripping back just as tightly.  There is no way in hell – or whatever hell _this_ is – that Nicole is going to let Waverly get ripped away from her.

It happens so slowly that they don’t even realize it at first.  The darkness begins to fade around them, slowly melting away like the ice on the windows of the Homestead after they’ve stoked a fire and hunkered down to weather a harsh winter night. 

Gradually, it grows lighter and lighter, like the magical dome Nicole had constructed in her mind is being torn down piece by piece.  By the time the buzzing has reached a fever pitch, the wind is practically gale force and they’re forced to squeeze their eyes shut tightly against the blinding light.

It builds and builds and builds until if finally _breaks._

With a loud _pop,_ it’s over.  The wind, the noise, the light.  All gone.

Nicole finally cracks an eye open cautiously and immediately has to squint against the light.

Okay, maybe not _all_ gone.

To her absolute delight, the afternoon sun is hanging proudly in the sky, bright as ever, and blazing down on them.  The unnaturally cold air is gone, their chilled skin thawing pleasantly in the warmth.

She turns her head to find Waverly scrambling to her knees, crawling to Nicole’s side in an instant.

 _“Nicole!”_ she cries, already trying to push the dead ghoul off of Nicole’s chest.  “Oh, my god, Nicole.  Are you okay, baby?”

She gazes up at Waverly, her face like an angel with the sun behind her head giving her an ethereal halo.  Love wells up inside Nicole, filling her to bursting, until it’s spilling out of her mouth.

“Marry me.”

“W-what?”  Waverly pauses her efforts, her hands frozen comically in the air between them.

Nicole grunts and does her best to wiggle her arms free.  She plants her hands on the shoulders of the corpse, making the best of what little leverage is available, and heaves with everything she has left in her tank.  The ghoul really _is_ heavier than it looks, and it barely budges, but still, she manages to shift it just enough to allow herself to roll out from underneath it before it collapses back to the ground again with a squelching _thud_.

“Will you marry me?” she asks again, reaching out with her uninjured arm to stroke Waverly’s cheek softly.

“Nicole…” Waverly starts, still gaping at Nicole.  She suddenly stands, completely oblivious to Nicole’s hand, which falls away unceremoniously, and begins pacing back and forth on the scorched earth.  “You can’t just…  I mean, we almost _died,”_ she rambles, her hands gesticulating wildly.  She spins on her heel sharply, coming to a jarring halt, facing Nicole again.  “You can’t just say that because we almost died, Nicole.  I mean that’s…  It’s…”  She’s pacing again.  “It’s _crazy_ is what it is.”  More pacing.  “Crazy…” she mutters.

Rolling her eyes with a huff, Nicole lets her head drop back down into the dirt for a moment, gathering her remaining strength.  Her muscles ache and her arm is still radiating pain all the way up to her chest and back down again, but she grits her teeth and forces herself up onto her knees, and then eventually to her feet.

She limps back over to where her pack had fallen, slipping from her shoulders when she’d been thrown into the rocks.  Leaning heavily on one of them for support, she rummages in the small zippered pocket on the side of the pack that she’s been checking obsessively ever since they left the Jeep on the side of the road.

When she turns back to Waverly, she’s stopped her pacing and is just staring at Nicole, her arms hanging limply at her sides.  Nicole shuffles back over to her and gingerly lowers herself down to one knee. 

She tries not to think about what she must look like right now.  Her face bloody, her hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks.  Covered almost entirely from head to toe with the ghoul’s ichor.  An open wound on her forearm, blood smeared on her hands and clothes.  And here she is, down on one knee in the middle of the desert, looking up at the only woman she has ever truly loved.

“Waverly Earp,” she begins, and Waverly’s lip is already trembling.  “We almost die once a week.  But that doesn’t change the way I feel about you.  This isn’t how I was going to do this.”  She sighs, gesturing to their surroundings and then looking back up to Waverly, who is crying very obviously now.  Nicole pushes on.  “It was supposed to be at the top of the mountain in the State Park, watching the sun setting over the valley below.  But it’s always an adventure with you.”  She shakes her head gently.  _“Every day_ is an adventure.  And I would fight demons in the middle of the desert every single day, as long as I can do it while I’m by your side.”

Nicole uncurls her hand from around the small, black, velvet box.  She opens it to reveal a diamond nestled into a detailed silver band, dazzling in the California sun.

“So, I’m going to ask you one more time.  Would you like to go on an adventure with me every day for the rest of our lives, Waverly Earp?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. I've been promising you guys some legends. Buckle in. The list is long.
> 
>  
> 
> *****  
> http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/strange-tales-of-horror-in-the-desert/  
> https://www.desertusa.com/desert-people/haunted-deserts.html
> 
> \-- The Borrego Sasquatch  
> \-- The Lady in White  
> ((Her location and timeframe was as close to accurate as possible, but I had to modify the circumstances surrounding her death a bit. Her ties to JHA are obviously of my own doing.))  
> \-- The Phantom Stage  
> ((The location and timeframe are mostly accurate, as well as its cargo and the shadowy figure that drives it, but its ties to the other legends and historical figures are obviously of my own doing.))  
> \-- The Spectral Horse  
> ((The location and timeframe are mostly accurate, but the nature of its death/existence have been modified. Its ties to the other legends and historical figures are obviously of my own doing.))  
> \-- The Ghost Dancers of Yaqui Well  
> \-- The Eight-Foot Skeleton
> 
>  
> 
> *****  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hicks_Adams  
> \-- John Hicks Adams  
> ((I used as much of his true history as possible. He was a Sheriff and a US Marshal. He fought the Confederate renegades, survived a gunshot thanks to his pocket watch, and hunted the Mason Henry Gang. I tried to keep the locations as close to accurate as possible, but had to fudge a few things to put him in the right areas at the right times. Obviously, his connection to Marisol/The Lady in White is all of my own doing.))
> 
> If you would like to see a picture of JHA, you can check here:
> 
> http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2-xqb9WwEVo/VW1vavlqHUI/AAAAAAAAXjU/t6VlMfWgzTc/s1600/John%2BHicks%2BAdams%2B%25281%2529.jpg
> 
>  
> 
> *****  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Henry_Gang  
> \-- John Mason  
> \-- Jim Henry  
> \-- Tom Hawkins  
> \-- John Rodgers  
> \-- Benjamin Mayfield (the man who killed John Mason in real life)  
> ((I used as much of their true history as I possibly could. They were partisan rangers, and the criminal acts described in the story were accurate. They were hunted by JHA, and they did have a network of spies that kept them at large for a long while. I obviously had to fabricate their deaths, and their ties to the other legends are, of course, of my own doing.))
> 
>  
> 
> *****  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoul  
> \-- Ghoul  
> ((The ghoul a monster of Persian mythology and Arabic folklore. It is a desert-dwelling creature and does behave mostly in the way that was described in the story. I obviously modified a few of its attributes to fit the story.))
> 
> If you would like to see a picture of this creature, you can check here:
> 
> https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/new-monster/images/6/60/Ghoul.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131027082446
> 
>  
> 
> *****
> 
> I believe that covers all of the historical legends, lore, and myths that I used in this adventure. Everything else (the pocket dimension/the time loop/the curse/etc) are things I crafted specifically for this story.
> 
> If any of you have any questions about the research I did, the legends and historical figures I used, the changes I had to make, or how I put them all together for this story, please feel free to drop by my Tumblr (@iamthegaysmurf) and hit me up for a discussion.


	8. I'll Be Yours Forever, I'll Sleep Close to Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title: "Close to Heaven" - Breaking Benjamin
> 
>  
> 
> The intention has always been to do an epilogue for this fic, in order to give the readers, the characters, and even myself a little bit of extra resolution.
> 
> I considered including it with the original run of the story leading up to Halloween, but it was really important to me that the primary story ended where it did, (I already knew the last line of the fic -- Nicole asking Waverly to go an adventure with her every day for the rest of their lives -- before I even began writing the first chapter), and served as the "finale." I didn't want the impact of any of that to get lost in the extra content of this bonus epilogue chapter.
> 
> I decided to wait a bit so that it would be far enough removed from the finale on Halloween that it wouldn't detract from the actual story, because in my opinion, it's already _complete_ the way it is.
> 
> So here we are, exactly a week later, and I am excited to give you all this extra little update. It's been extremely hard not to give away the surprise with all of the people that have been asking if there would be a sequel. 
> 
> Anyway. That's enough rambling from this Smurf. Without further ado... I hope you enjoy!

“Wynonna was right.”

“…Do I even want to know _what_ she was right about?”

“It’s not really camping without alcohol.”

“You were supposed to be using that whiskey for sterilization.”

“Yeah, but we’re already done with all of that.  Besides.  I think we’ve earned a drink, don’t you?”

Nicole supposes Waverly is right.  She grabs the containers of food from their packs and carefully settles down on the blanket next to Waverly in front of the fire. 

Things had been tense and anxious the last time they were here at their designated campsite.  They had been trying to keep the fear at bay by staying busy, performing the required tasks and flirting and giving each other good-natured shit.  But it had always been present, lingering at the edges of the camp like a rabid animal waiting for the right opportunity, striking in the stillness, when they accidentally allowed themselves to settle and were at their most vulnerable.

But tonight, the atmosphere is lighter.  The fire is crackling and there are stars overhead, and though they are both exhausted, their muscles aching and their bodies broken, they are high on survival and relief and the hysteria from the events of the day.

It’s hard to think of it as just a _day._   It had seemed like so much longer, but out here in the real world, it hadn’t even been that. 

In fact, in the real world, it was like they had never been gone at all. 

The first thing they had done was some emergency triage on Nicole’s arm, in the form of Waverly stripping off her flannel shirt – she would fare the desert sun in a tank top far better than Nicole would have – and tying it around the open wound to stop the bleeding and keep the dirt and sand and sweat out of it. 

But after that, they had immediately checked their phones.  As it turns out, not even a single minute had passed since they had first been pulled into the realm where John Hicks Adams and Marisol had been trapped for a century and a half.  Their batteries had been drained low, and there was no service out there in the middle of nowhere, but according to the clock, it was still just after 4pm on the same day they had gone “missing.” 

The exact time the clock in the Jeep had gone out.

No service had meant no calling Wynonna to tell her what had happened to them, but they had breathed a bit easier knowing they hadn’t been off the grid for days or weeks or months.  They had known they would need to set up camp again, being much too far from the Jeep to make it back in the four hours of daylight that remained, but neither of them had wanted to do so in their current location.  The ground with littered with bones and the stench was overwhelming and, quite frankly, being in the presence of such a persistent evil was creepy as fuck. 

They had _not_ wanted to sleep anywhere _near_ there.

They had mutually agreed that the best course of action would be to use the daylight they had left to try and make it back to the relative safety of the place they had camped before.  It had only taken a couple of hours of walking to get to their current location, and even though they would be taking it slower on the way back due to their injuries, they should still be able to make it in time.

Before leaving, though, Waverly had insisted on burning the body – and the head – of the ghoul.  They’ve dealt with so much of this stuff over the past couple of years that _“better safe than sorry”_ might as well be the motto of their relationship.  Nicole certainly hadn’t argued with Waverly’s plan, but she had been even more enthusiastic about the idea when she realized she would finally get to use her Everstryke Match properly.

The trek back to the campsite had been long and arduous and ridiculously hot under the desert sun – especially after spending so long in the unnaturally cold air – but they had persevered.  They’d only come close to collapsing three times, which Waverly had declared a victory, even though Nicole was just glad when they had finally arrived so that she could sink down on the large rock and try not to think about how badly everything hurt.

The sun had been fading quickly by the time they’d arrived, and setting up the camp before the darkness settled in had urged her to keep moving.  Her injured arm had proven to be a hindrance, but Waverly remembered all of the steps and had handled the bulk of the load.  It took some doing, but they’d managed to erect the tent just like before, and Nicole had talked Waverly through getting the fire started.  Both of them had been immensely grateful there was already a pile of expertly chopped firewood conveniently waiting for them.

Their first priority had been trying to get clean.  As clean as possible when you’re in the middle of the desert with no running water.  Waverly had emptied one of their multiple canteens into a collapsible anodized aluminum pot that was tucked away at the bottom of Nicole’s pack and brought it to a boil.  They’d peeled their ripped and filthy clothing off and used a couple of bandanas and the hand sanitizer to scrub themselves as clean as they could under the circumstances.  Nicole’s hair had been a bit more difficult, but Waverly had helped her get as much of the goo out of it as possible.

After redressing in the emergency change of clothes – which Waverly _finally_ admitted was a good thing Nicole had packed for them both – they’d set about tending to their injuries.  Waverly boiled another fresh canteen’s worth of water and cleaned out the scratches on her calf, easily dressing them with a couple of Band-Aids. 

Nicole’s wounds had taken a lot more work.  Using a spare sock – soft, clean cotton – Waverly had gingerly cleaned the gouge on the side of Nicole’s head.  It didn’t appear deep enough to need stitches, so Waverly had applied a couple of Steri-Strips and covered it with a large Band-Aid. 

The bite on her arm had been a different matter, though.  It was deep and jagged and in danger of becoming infected.  Waverly had wished for a suture kit – Dolls had showed her how to use them in the beginning, and she’d become quite adept at stitching up their team over the years – but they would have to make do without.

Waverly had cracked open the whiskey in her pack and used it to sterilize a pair of tweezers after pouring a little of it over the wound itself.  Nicole had hissed with the burn, but knew it was necessary to stave off infection until they could get it properly taken care of.  She hoped the trusty “bitten by a wild animal while camping” excuse would hold up when they visited the ER to get shot up with antibiotics.

After carefully picking out the bits of dirt and debris that had collected in the open wound during the struggle and the journey back, Waverly had closed it the best that she was able, pulling the ripped flesh together with a series of butterfly closures.  She had covered it with a couple of sterile gauze pads, held in place with the medical tape from the kit, and then she’d wrapped Nicole’s entire forearm in an Ace bandage, just to keep the whole dressing secure.

And now it’s a beautiful night.  A silver moon lights up the inky black sky, decorated with a galaxy’s worth of stars.  The air is cool, but not unnaturally so like before, and it actually feels pretty nice after spending hours in the intense heat of the desert sun.  The fire pops and hisses and holds any real chill at bay, the soft, flickering light comforting after spending so long in the darkness of the curse.

“I guess I can’t really argue with that logic,” Nicole says with a smile, handing over Waverly’s snacks. 

Waverly passes her Wynonna’s Alberta Premium and Nicole takes a long pull, relishing the burn as it goes down and the way it warms her from the inside out.  When Waverly takes the bottle back from her, the ring on her finger glints in the firelight, sending an entirely different kind of warmth through Nicole’s body.

The answer had been immediate and enthusiastic, and Nicole isn’t really sure if it had been that or the bone-crushing hug that followed that had stolen her breath.  They had almost kissed, but Nicole had stopped them, knowing her face was covered in seven kinds of disgusting.  Waverly had pouted, but eventually relented.

She hadn’t put the ring on, insisting that they keep it in the box, tucked away securely in Nicole’s pack until they returned to civilization where it would be safe.  But after they’d gotten settled in, camp set up and wounds dressed, she couldn’t help at least trying it on for a little while.  Watching it sparkling on Waverly’s finger, knowing what it means, Nicole is glad that she did so.

They eat for a while, passing the bottle back and forth while they talk about everything that’s happened to them:  the time loop and the ghoul and eternal love of Marisol and John Hicks Adams.  It’s light and easy and Nicole is lulled into pleasant buzz until Waverly finally takes the bottle from her and sets it aside this time, leaning in close.

“Kiss me,” she says, her voice low as her hands creep up Nicole’s arms to loop around her shoulders.

“Waverly…” Nicole warns, her gaze dropping to Waverly’s lips and lingering there.  “You don’t want me to do that.  I’m still not really—”  Waverly’s hands lock behind her neck and tug her closer.

“Kiss me anyway,” Waverly breathes, their lips already brushing.

Nicole barely hesitates before pressing forward, bringing them together in a kiss that melts into her soul.  Their lips slide together reverently – _unhurried_ , but not _unsure_ – and when Waverly tentatively slips her tongue past the seam of Nicole’s lips, soft and warm and slightly smoky from the whiskey, Nicole sighs into her mouth, content.

They’re suspended like this for a brief moment, living in the here and now, drinking in the revelation that their _Last Kiss_ hadn’t truly been their _last_ kiss.  Then the heat flares between them, licking at them like the flames of the campfire are licking at the night sky, and Waverly very carefully crawls into Nicole’s lap, straddling her thighs.  Nicole’s arms instinctively go around Waverly’s waist, holding her close as Waverly cradles her face and kisses her deeper.

“I want you,” Waverly murmurs in her ear, finally breaking the kiss with her chest heaving, her voice raw and husky.

“Waverly…” Nicole whines, squeezing her eyes shut tightly.  “We…  we can’t… We’re injured.  And we’ve been out here for two days without…  I mean we’re…”  She waves a hand between the two of them, flustered, her face warm with more than just sunburn.

“I don’t care,” Waverly says, shaking her head.  Her fingers slip into Nicole’s hair, tipping her head back slightly.  “We’re _alive._   We _survived._   We got out of there.  _And…”_ she adds, rolling her hips deliberately as she drags her nose up Nicole’s jaw to whisper in her ear.  “You asked me to marry you.”

“I asked you to marry me,” Nicole repeats dumbly, swallowing hard.

“You did,” Waverly coos, smirking against the skin of Nicole’s neck.  She trails a line of open-mouthed kisses across her throat, careful of the cuts and scratches left behind by the ghoul, until she reaches Nicole’s other ear.  “Don’t you think that’s worth celebrating?”

Nicole just groans, her fingers digging into Waverly’s ass reflexively.

“I don’t care about the rest of it,” Waverly says, serious, taking Nicole’s face in her hands again and searching her eyes.  “I don’t care.  We can be careful.  And there are certain things we can avoid doing.  But…”  She rests their foreheads together, and Nicole’s breath catches in her throat.  “I want you, Nicole.  I _need_ you.”  She hesitates for a moment, letting her lips barely brush against Nicole’s again.  “Do you want me, too?”

The dam bursts, and everything Nicole has been holding back due to their situation – the desire and the want and the _love_ – comes flooding through, washing away any residual fear and hesitation.  The last of Nicole’s resolve crumbles, and she surges forward, kissing Waverly with everything she has, her hands urging Waverly to continue rolling her hips.

Waverly’s fingers tighten in Nicole’s hair as her tongue curls into Nicole’s mouth persistently, moaning as she continues to grind into Nicole’s lap.  Nicole slides her hands up from Waverly’s hips, under the sweatshirt and tank top, finding bare skin and feeling Waverly’s muscles jump under her fingertips.  She lets her hands continue to drift higher until the shirts are bunched under Waverly’s arms and her thumbs reach the underside of Waverly’s sports bra.

Tearing herself away from the kiss with a groan, Waverly leans back far enough to pull the shirts the rest of the way off, goosebumps rising from her lust and Nicole’s touch and the cool night air.  Nicole’s eyes flick toward the tent, but Waverly shakes her head.

“No,” she pants.  “Here.”  Nicole’s eyebrows shoot up, but Waverly just responds by pulling her sports bra over her head.  “I want to have you under the stars, with the fire in your eyes.”

The firelight may be shining in her eyes, but there’s a rising tide of need swelling within her, and Nicole rides the waves as they crash into both of them.  She pushes forward, laying Waverly back onto the blanket, kneeling between her legs as she begins to unbutton her flannel.  Waverly tugs on the ends of it, watching as it slips from Nicole’s shoulders, before she shrugs the rest of the way out of it and tosses it next to Waverly’s discarded garments.

Nicole grabs the hem of her tank top and moves to pull it over her head, but the fabric twists around her injured arm when it’s halfway off and she yelps at the sharp pain the awkward position she’s stuck in produces.  Waverly rises up to meet her immediately, her hands gentle as they calm Nicole’s flailing, and helps her untangle herself. 

“I got you,” Waverly says gently as she slides her fingers up under the band of Nicole’s sports bra, helping to ease it up and off as well, careful not to let the same thing happen this time.

“M’sorry,” Nicole mumbles, ducking her head.

“Shhh, baby.  No,” Waverly soothes, running her hands up Nicole’s torso, earning a gasp when her thumbs brush over hardened nipples.  “It’s about time I got to return the favor,” she says with a cheeky grin, and Nicole huffs out a laugh despite the way she’s arching into Waverly’s touch.  She goes for a kiss, but they both lean in at the same time, bumping heads lightly, and that leaves them both giggling hysterically.

“You’d think we’ve never done this before,” Nicole laughs, dipping her head to kiss Waverly’s neck.  It tastes like salt from the sweat and soap from the residue left behind by the hand sanitizer, but it doesn’t stop her from sucking gently at Waverly’s pulse.

“What’s the—”  Waverly cuts herself off with a groan when she feels Nicole’s teeth dragging lightly over her collarbone.  “What’s the point,” she tries again, her breath coming with more difficulty now, “if we can’t still have fun with it?”

Nicole hums her agreement into the hollow of Waverly’s throat and lowers her back down to the blanket.  Her hands knead at Waverly’s breasts as she moves back up to kiss her again, the little noises she makes muffled by Nicole’s tongue.

Waverly is pulling at her hips, trying to draw her closer, but Nicole remains on her knees above her.  When she whimpers into Nicole’s mouth, Nicole takes pity on her, sitting back on her heels, her hands moving to the button of Waverly’s jeans.  Even with all of Waverly’s impatient squirming, Nicole still manages to get them undone, pulling her jeans and underwear down to her knees.

She pauses when she realizes they’re both still wearing their boots, and together, they make quick work of toeing out of them and shedding the rest of their clothes.  When they settle back down again, this time there is nothing left between them, and Waverly sighs sharply when Nicole lowers herself into the cradle of her hips.

Nicole holds herself up with one arm, kissing her hard while her other hand returns to Waverly’s breast, palming it and thumbing at her nipple.  Waverly stirs beneath her, beginning to rub herself against Nicole’s abdomen, and she smirks into the kiss when she feels how ready for her Waverly is.  She trails her hand lower until she’s gripping Waverly’s hip, using it for leverage to grind down into her with purpose, giving Waverly the friction she needs.

The dull ache that’s been ever-present in the bite wound grows into something with more edge, making Nicole’s entire arm shake, but she ignores it the best she can, focusing instead on helping Waverly chase her pleasure.  But as Waverly moves her hands down Nicole’s sides to grasp at her hips, a sharp pain lances through Nicole’s ribs when Waverly’s fingers drag across the large bruise left behind by the ghoul.  When her body jerks in response, it places even more weight on her injured arm, causing it to finally give out.  She collapses heavily onto Waverly before she can catch herself, her head momentarily swimming from the pain.

Waverly grunts in surprise when Nicole’s full weight suddenly lands on top of her, but she immediately starts rubbing her hands up and down Nicole’s back while she tries to gather herself again.  Nicole is trembling, overwhelmed by the mix of sensations, and embarrassed over falling on Waverly.

“I…  I’m sorry, Wave,” she mumbles into Waverly’s neck, trying to catch her breath.  “I didn’t mean to…  That…  That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Hey,” Waverly says, letting one of her hands trail up far enough to play with the hair at the nape of Nicole’s neck.  “It’s okay.  I’m fine.”  She tilts her head away slightly, trying to look Nicole in the eye.  “I’m sorry I hurt you.  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nicole insists, wincing as she tries to push herself back up, her arms still shaky beneath her.

“You’re not, Nic.”  Waverly wraps her arms around Nicole’s shoulders and pulls her back down against her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Nicole says again.  “I don’t know if…”  She sighs, hiding her face against Waverly’s shoulder, ashamed.  “I might not be able to do this.”

“Shhh…”  Waverly soothes, kissing the top of Nicole’s head.  “Hey…”  She squeezes her arm around Nicole’s shoulders, but her girlfriend – _fiancée_ – keeps her face hidden.  “Nicole…  Look at me?  Please?”  Nicole finally peeks up, her face flushed, and half of it still buried in Waverly’s shoulder.  “I’ll handle things tonight,” Waverly murmurs, one of her hands beginning to trail up and down Nicole’s back again.  “You know I don’t mind taking charge sometimes.”

“You don’t have to, Wave,” Nicole says, shaking her head.  “I think I’ll be able to…”  She starts to slip her hand down between them.  “I can at least finish what I started for you.”

“Nicole…”  Waverly stops Nicole’s hand, lacing their fingers together as she draws it up to kiss the back Nicole’s knuckles.  “I _want_ to take care of you,” she says, tilting her head to catch Nicole’s lips in a kiss.  She pushes up gently, urging Nicole to let her roll them over.  Nicole goes willingly, settling on her back with Waverly above her now, silhouetted by the firelight.  She leans down and whispers thickly in Nicole’s ear, “Just let me, baby,” as her fingertips dance across Nicole’s hipbones.

 _“Yes,”_ Nicole breathes, and then she inhales sharply because Waverly is dipping into her heat.  She’s so wet, and Waverly’s fingers glide easily, stroking aimlessly at first and then with measured circles.  It’s not enough, and Nicole’s hips stir restlessly as she clutches at Waverly’s sides, trying to urge her on.  “Waverly…” she groans, her voice low and thick and raspy, her head thrown back with her eyes squeezed shut.  _“Please.”_

Waverly slips her tongue into Nicole’s mouth at the same time she slips her fingers inside, and Nicole’s world tilts.  She greedily sucks on Waverly’s tongue as her hips buck into Waverly’s hand, feeling Waverly pause to twist her fingers slightly before pushing deeper.  She arches off the blanket, a marionette suspended by the strings that Waverly so expertly pulls.

And then Waverly begins to thrust. 

Long, deliberate strokes, accentuated by a curl of her fingers on every pass.  She swallows down the sounds that Nicole makes, moans and gasps and whimpers as she falls into rhythm with Waverly’s movements, grinding into the heel of her palm with every roll of her hips.  Her fingers dig into Waverly’s back, too afraid that if she lets her go, all of this will turn out to be a cruel manifestation of the cursed world they’d been trapped in.

Nicole is overwhelmed by the sudden feeling, a strange mixture of fear and need.  She’s _afraid_ that Waverly might disappear, and she _needs_ to feel her.  To feel that she is here and that she’s alive and that she’s _real._   Needs to feel her breathing heavily into her neck.  Needs to feel her warm and tight around her fingers.  Needs to feel them both rising ever higher as they make love to each other.

“Waverly…  W-wait…” she gasps, forcing her eyes open to find bright hazel ones watching her closely.

“What’s wrong?” Waverly asks, immediately halting her movements with a deeply furrowed brow.  Nicole whimpers at the loss, her hips jerking involuntarily.  “Did I hurt you again?”  She starts to withdraw, but Nicole grabs her hand, looping her fingers around Waverly’s wrist to keep it in place.

“No,” Nicole pants, her chest heaving.  “I just…  I want…”

“Tell me,” Waverly whispers against Nicole’s lips.  She still doesn’t resume her thrusting, but she does give her fingers a testing curl, pleased when Nicole mewls in response.  “Tell me what you want.”

 _“You,”_ Nicole replies earnestly.  She lets go of Waverly’s wrist, bringing both of her hands up to cradle Waverly’s face.  “I want to have you, too.  I need you, baby.”

Waverly makes a noise, a low rumble deep in her throat, and chews on her lip as her eyes flick back and forth between Nicole’s and then down to her lips and then back up again.  Her fingers twitch, buried deep, and Nicole flutters around them, holding her breath, the tendons in her neck pulled taut.

“Okay,” Waverly finally breathes.  She turns her face until her lips press against Nicole’s palm, and she lets them linger there for a moment.  “Okay,” she says again.

She shifts between Nicole’s legs, rising up enough to make room for Nicole to work her hand down between them.  She’s practically dripping, and her eyes flutter closed when Nicole’s fingers swirl a few times, gathering it up until they are slick enough to slide inside with no resistance.  Nicole groans when she feels Waverly tighten around her, drawing her deeper.

For a moment, they’re frozen.  Lost inside each other in more ways than one.

And then…  they _move._

Nicole is pushing into her and Waverly is pushing back and their breaths get swallowed up by the crackling of the fire.  Nicole ignores the burn spreading through the bite in her arm again and focuses instead on the burn that’s building deep inside, growing hotter every time Waverly twists her fingers or clenches around her.

Waverly sets a pace, strong and determined, and Nicole does her best to match it.  To make Waverly feel the way she feels right now; breathless and buzzing, like someone has touched her with a livewire.  But the angle is awkward and the strain on her injured arm is growing and it doesn’t take long before the pain of moving her wrist begins to override the pleasure Waverly is giving her.

It must show in her face because Waverly sits up on her knees, pulling out of Nicole’s reach, her fingers falling away with a soft, wet sound.  Nicole starts to protest, but Waverly withdraws her own hand, turning the words into a series of strangled noises in the back of Nicole’s throat.

“Baby,” Waverly admonishes.  “You’re in pain.”  She takes Nicole’s arm in her hands, beginning to gently massage her wrist.

“Waverly, _please,”_ Nicole begs on a choked sob.  “I need you.”

“Shhh…  I know,” she says, her voice low and her eyes smoldering.  She shifts her position again, moving to straddle one of Nicole’s legs, and lays Nicole’s hand on it right in front of her.  “Brace your hand against your thigh, baby.  Let me do all the work.”

Before Nicole can say anything else, Waverly is sinking back down onto Nicole’s fingers, making sure to drag herself along Nicole’s palm on the way.  She gives a testing roll of her hips, moaning loudly, and Nicole’s hips jerk violently in response.

 _“Waverly,”_ she pleads, her hips bucking against the empty air.

Leaning forward, Waverly braces herself securely on her elbow.  She hovers just barely above Nicole, mindful not to put any weight on Nicole’s forearm, but letting her breasts drag over Nicole’s, smirking at the sound that comes out of Nicole’s throat.

“Don’t worry, my love,” Waverly whispers heavily in Nicole’s ear.  Her entire body arches up trying to meet Waverly’s, but then she feels Waverly’s hand on her hip, holding her down.  “I promised to take care of you,” she murmurs, letting her lips ghost along the shell of Nicole’s ear in the same manner that her fingers are ghosting through Nicole’s wetness, teasing her so badly that her entire body is trembling with need.  “And that’s what I’m going to do.”

Waverly buries her fingers again, all the way to the knuckle, and Nicole cries out, her head thrown back.  Her fingers twist in response and Waverly’s moans match her own, vibrating against Nicole’s neck where she sucks at her pulse.  Waverly begins to gently roll her hips against Nicole’s hand and thigh, slow and leisurely, a sharp contrast to the pace she sets for Nicole.

Nicole feels the tide rising again, knowing it will crest soon, and desperately wants to drag Waverly under with her when it swallows her whole.  She lifts her leg slightly, planting her foot to give Waverly more leverage to grind into her.  She uses her thumb to swipe and press and flick every time Waverly rocks, but all of it is to no avail.  Waverly’s movements are unhurried – she’s still drawing pleasure from them, judging by the sounds she’s making against Nicole’s throat now – but not enough to tip her over the edge anytime soon.

Yet despite all of that, Waverly is taking Nicole with _purpose._   Her thrusts are strong, but not frenzied, and she curls her fingers with every stroke, making sure to press down with the heel of her palm every time she reaches the deepest places.  Nicole is rapidly losing her grip on reality, grateful that Waverly is currently directing her own pleasure rather than needing Nicole to guide her through it.  She feels hollow, like Waverly is filling her up with their lust and love and _life,_ and before she can get control of it, she’s drowning in everything that Waverly is giving her.

“Wave, I…” she gasps.  “I… I can’t…”  She swallows thickly, her eyes squeezed shut, trying desperately to hold it back.  To get Waverly there, too.  To bring them both to the cliff’s edge _together,_ so that they can _fly._  

“Let it go, baby,” Waverly pants heavily into Nicole’s ear, her own pleasure steadily rising, but obviously having a different goal in mind.  She uses her thumb to circle and add just the right amount of pressure, exactly how Nicole likes it.  “Let me have it, Nicole.”

The fire beside them burns hot and steady, dancing in Waverly’s eyes and warming their skin, but the fire inside Nicole reaches a flashpoint, the flames extending to engulf them both, Waverly pressed flush against her body while her free hand clutches desperately at Waverly’s back.  She comes with her fingers buried in Waverly’s heat and her face buried in Waverly’s neck, her cheek pressed against Waverly’s chest and Waverly’s name on her tongue.

With every curl of her fingers, Waverly draws forth another version of her name or a declaration of love or a plea not to stop, Nicole’s lips brushing against the flushed skin of Waverly’s chest, tattooing each word onto her heart.  Waverly gradually slows her strokes to match the languid roll of her own hips, gently easing Nicole through first the crashing waves and then the fading ripples that follow.

“Waverly…” Nicole sighs when her body finally begins to still, the hand that had been digging into Waverly’s shoulder sliding down to rest at the small of her back.  The muscles flex beneath her fingertips, still stretching and contracting as Waverly continues to lightly grind against Nicole’s other hand.

“I love you,” Waverly whispers hoarsely, lifting up enough look Nicole in the eye.  “I l-love you,” she groans again, shuddering when Nicole makes a deliberate sweep of her thumb.

Waverly leans down to kiss her, swallowing Nicole’s whine when she slowly withdraws her fingers.  She wipes her hand on the blanket and brings it up to brace on the other side of Nicole’s head, lifting up so that her weight is resting on both of her palms, panting through her slightly open mouth.

“I love you, too, Waverly,” Nicole says, splaying her fingers wide on Waverly’s hip, urging her to keep moving.  “So much.”  Her voice is low and gravely, and she sees something flash in Waverly’s eyes.

She leans down to kiss Nicole again, nipping lightly at her bottom lip when she pulls away this time, and then she pushes all the way up until she is on her knees, fully straddling Nicole’s thigh.  Her hips continue to jog involuntarily, even though she’s trying to hold still, and she looks down at Nicole with fire in her eyes.

“Go, baby,” Nicole says firmly, twisting her fingers and groaning when Waverly tightens around her.  “Use me for what you want.”

All of Waverly’s patience and restraint – everything she’s been holding back in order to focus on Nicole first – goes up in smoke, curling up into the night sky as she burns beneath it.  Nicole draws her other leg up, planting her foot and raising her knee.  Waverly lets her hand fall to it, her fingers digging into the soft spots on the sides as she grips it tightly, using it to steady herself.

And then…  she _moves._

Nicole’s name falls from her lips as her hips snap forward, the muscles in her thighs and abdomen pulling taut as she finally – _finally_ – begins to ride Nicole with reckless abandon.  The pace is desperate and greedy as she rocks and grinds and clenches, grunting every time Nicole presses with her thumb.

They’ve been chasing phantom steeds.  Chasing lovelorn ghosts.  Chasing demons and curses and a way to get back home.  But here, now, with Waverly chasing her pleasure, all of the rest of it falls away.  The world fades to just the two of them.  To their connection.  Physical.  Emotional.  And Nicole would say downright spiritual.  They are one on so many levels, and it’s stolen moments like this when Nicole feels it in her very bones.

She can tell Waverly is getting close.  It’s evident in the way her hips stutter, struggling to keep her own rhythm.  In the way the noises she’s making sound less like Nicole’s name and more like throaty moans rushing out of her lungs every time her chest heaves.  In the way she’s beginning to flutter around Nicole’s fingers, drawing her deeper and deeper and _deeper_ with every thrust and curl.

“That’s it, Wave,” Nicole encourages, feeling Waverly’s arousal coating her palm and her wrist and her thigh.  She grips Waverly’s hip tighter and flexes her leg muscles, helping her thrust up every time Waverly’s hips slam down.

Tendrils of Waverly’s hair stick to her forehead in the sheen of sweat that’s forming from her exertion and the heat of the fire, her breasts swaying as she bounces and gyrates, drawing herself right to the very edge.  And then she inhales sharply, her fingers digging into Nicole’s knee so strongly there will definitely be bruises, and her entire body freezes as she clenches so hard Nicole can’t even move her fingers.

“Don’t hold back, baby,” Nicole urges.  “Take what you need.”

They’ve almost lost each other several times in the past couple of days.  Almost _died._   But when Waverly comes with her head thrown back and her entire body arched forward, every dip and curve and hard plane of muscle glowing in the soft light of the fire, her hips jerking erratically as she moans into the night, Nicole thinks she’s never seen her look so _alive._

It’s awkward and clumsy and her bruised ribs scream at her, but Nicole manages to sit up without dislodging Waverly, who is still riding out her storm, lightning in her eyes and thunder in her veins.  She wraps her free arm around Waverly’s waist, allowing her to rock even harder without fear of losing her balance, and the hand that doesn’t have Nicole’s knee in a vice grip digs into her shoulder, letting Waverly put even more force behind her rutting.

Nicole tries to kiss her, but Waverly is moving – and moaning, and gasping, and rambling a string of nonsense that may or may not be Latin – too much for their lips to connect.  She settles for covering her neck in sloppy kisses, letting her teeth lightly graze at the cords and tendons and Waverly’s pulse.

“Don’t stop, Waverly,” she whispers in Waverly’s ear, licking along the shell.  “Keep going,” she murmurs, pulling back far enough to watch Waverly’s face.  It’s screwed up in concentration and pleasure, a deep crease between her brows and her bottom lip drawn between her teeth as she continues to ride Nicole frantically.  When she finally opens her eyes to meet Nicole’s gaze, Nicole can tell she’s already right on the edge again.  “Give it all to me, baby,” Nicole commands and Waverly’s head drops forward to rest on her shoulder as her body begins to shudder anew.

She doesn’t know how long they stay wrapped up in that moment, pressed tightly together, breathing the same air, their hearts beating in time with their love, but Nicole can’t think of a single other place she’d rather be.  Eventually, Waverly whimpers into her neck as she reluctantly slides backward, allowing Nicole’s fingers to slip free.  She slides off of Nicole’s thigh, dropping between her spread legs and curling into her chest.

Nicole holds Waverly close, rubbing her hands up and down her back, and Waverly sighs, her breath ghosting across Nicole’s skin.  It isn’t until Waverly begins to tremble that Nicole realizes the fire has burned low, only the smoldering embers left after the consuming flame. 

Waverly whines when Nicole suggests they gather their clothes so that Waverly can collect their food and first-aid supplies while Nicole adds some more wood to the fire.  She finally agrees when Nicole promises that as soon as they finish, they can settle in to snuggle for the rest of the night.

It doesn’t take long.  They pull themselves messily into their clothes, Waverly helping Nicole to avoid any trouble with her arm, and they slip their boots on without even lacing them up, just for long enough to make it through the necessary tasks.  Waverly makes sure the food is properly sealed in the Tupperware containers and packed up securely while Nicole builds the fire up high enough to last all the way until the morning.

Waverly shakes out the blanket they’d been lying on and crawls into the tent to spread it out flat like Nicole had done the night before, and together, they build their little nest with the rest of the blankets.  After they’ve toed their boots off again and stashed them by the flap, Nicole closes them in, and they giggle as they accidentally bump into each other several times while trying to get settled in for the night.

“I wish we had the foam rollouts,” Waverly grumbles, trying to use Nicole for cushioning, but immediately backing off a little when Nicole yelps after taking an elbow to her bruised ribs.

“I know.  I’m gonna be so stiff after all of this.  The hike back to the Jeep in the morning is going to be murder,” Nicole sighs.  “At least we’ll have them tomorrow night.”

“No we won’t,” Waverly snorts, sounding disgusted.

“We…  won’t?”  Nicole asks, confused.

 _“Hell_ to the no,” Waverly answers dramatically.

“Ummm…  Why not?”

“Because tomorrow night, we are gonna have a five-star mattress.  And five-star sheets.  And five-star room service.”  Waverly tilts her head up to kiss the underside of Nicole’s jaw.  “And a five-star hot tub to melt away all of that stiffness.”

“Oh, we are, are we?”  Nicole’s voice lilts with grin that’s turning up the corners of her mouth.  “That’s a lot of stars.”

“Not as many as I’m gonna make you see after we get back out of the hot tub,” Waverly whispers in her ear as she walks her fingers across Nicole’s stomach under her flannel.

 _“Waverly Earp,”_ Nicole groans, her tone scandalous.

“Not for much longer,” Waverly says quietly, serious now.

“What…?”  Nicole shifts, wishing she could see Waverly’s face in the dark.  “You mean…?”

“I do,” Waverly says, nodding against her chest.  An instant later, she giggles lightly.  _“I do,”_ she says again.  “I like the sound of that.”

“So do I,” Nicole breathes softly.  “But, Wave…  Are you sure?  About the other thing, I mean.  You don’t have to…”

“I’m sure,” Waverly answers firmly.  “I’m not really an Earp anyway.”

“Waverly, y—”  She’s cut off when Waverly reaches up to place a finger against her lips.

“I _love_ being Wynonna’s sister.  Nothing can _ever_ take that away from me again.”  Her hand falls to Nicole’s shoulder, and then lets it trail all the way down her arm until they can lace their fingers together.  “And I know that I’ve got the heart of an Earp.  You guys have all shown me that.”  She sighs heavily.  “But it’s not _really_ my name, and it’s something that’s made me feel so unsure of myself.”

“Oh, Waverly…” Nicole whispers, her voice thick.

“But you, Nicole… You’re the thing I _am_ sure of.  You’re the thing that _makes_ me feel sure.  And I…”  Nicole feels her playing with her fingers nervously.  “I want that.  I might not have a choice about being an Earp.  But I _do_ have a choice about being a Haught.”  Nicole wraps the arm that Waverly is nestled into tighter around her shoulders.  “I mean, if…” She hesitates.  “If _you_ want it.  Want _me_ to have it.”

Nicole dips her head and finds Waverly’s lips, melting into a long, languid kiss, soft and wet and warm.  The warmth spreads, into her chest, into her limbs, into her very soul.

“There’s nothing in this world that I want more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you that has left me a piece of feedback regarding this fic, whether it be through commenting on the chapters, or leaving me asks on Tumblr (both anon and signed), or even sending a little bit of author love through the messenger. I have read every one of them (multiple times...) 
> 
> I have been _overwhelmed_ by the positive response to this story, and there's no way I could possibly tell you how much all of it has meant to me. Thank you so much for sticking with me through the journey of this fic, and I hope to see you around as I get back to my other WiPs soon. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Considerable research has gone into this fic concerning the history and the locations (both past and present). While I have done my best to keep it as close to historically accurate as possible, please understand that a few minor adjustments have had to be made in order to combine everything and craft a story that fit together properly. 
> 
> Once we get further into the lore that surrounds this adventure in the future chapters, I will make subsequent author notes to denote such minor deviations, as well as direct you to the original source material if you so wish to see it in its purest forms.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading. I am always up for questions and discussions.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @iamthegaysmurf


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